Count on Me
by The Original Horcrux
Summary: "This!" Dean shouted, standing up, snatching the paper from Seamus' hands and waving it in his face "This is not free reign Seamus! This is torture, this is the Ministry taking control of our lives, all to keep the pure blood race going!"
1. The Law

**TRIGGER WARNING!  
This story contains mature themes, such as sexual abuse, rape, abuse, mentions of suicide, suicide attempts and self harm. Please do not read if you are at any sort of risk of hurting yourself because of these words.**

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Chapter 1  
The Law

**Dean**

"Oi, Seamus, come look at this!" Dean yelled from the living room of his and Seamus' apartment.

"I'm just about to get in the shower!" Seamus yelled back, his voice muffled from behind the bathroom door. Dean couldn't care less. He stood a few feet away from the couch, that day's copy of the _Daily Prophet_ clutched in his hand staring in shock at the various headlines that littered the front page, the one in the very centre being the one that he was most focused on.

_PURE BLOOD'S FORCED INTO MARRIAGE!_

"Seamus!" Dean called warningly and he heard Seamus shut off the water in the bathroom.

"Alright, Alright you son of a banshee, I'm coming!" Seamus yelled back. Dean heard the bathroom door slam and Seamus' feet on the floorboards in the hallway. "What do you want Dean? I'm in a towel and this is getting really awkward."

Wordlessly, Dean tossed him the paper and Seamus caught it expertly, unfolding it.

"This better be _really _go-" he broke off as he saw the headline. "No" he breathed. "Parvati and –"

"Theodore Nott, yes" Dean interrupted. "What were they thinking?"

"This is _not_ good, what will Parvati's parents say?" Seamus said, sitting down on the couch beside Dean who had his head in his hands. "You _know_ how big they are on traditional Indian Marriage and after the fiasco with Padma and Terry."

"I can't believe all you're worried about is her parents!" Dean said angrily, "She is married to _Theodore Nott_! That slimy little son of a death eater that was friends with Malfoy at Hogwarts!"

"Dean, she's not your girl anymore, she has free reign." Seamus said softly, knowing how touchy his friend was when it came to his ex-girlfriend.

"This!" Dean shouted, standing up, snatching the paper from Seamus' hands and waving it in his face "This is not free reign Seamus! This is torture, this is the Ministry taking control of our lives, all to keep the pure blood race going! Not only is it racist, it's stupid and wrong!"

"Dean, calm down mate." Seamus said, attempting to console him. "You know Parvati, she's cool."

"Not with a marriage to _him_ she's not!" Dean said, his voice filled with malice. "Read it." And he thrust the paper back at Seamus, who opened to page four where the article on Theodore and Parvati's marriage took up a section of the page. Dean read over Seamus' shoulder, shaking with anger at every word he read.

_Lion and Snake tie the Nott_

Even the title was stupid.

_The law for the reasonable decree of wizarding marriage clearly states that if the pure blood race is at risk of becoming extinct (that is, dying out) marriages between a pureblood witch and a pureblood wizard may be forced. The couple will be expected to consummate the marriage within a month. _

_Yesterday, your _Daily Prophet _reporter witnessed the very first of these marriages, a marriage between twenty-one year old Theodore Nott and Parvati Patil, also twenty-one. _

_The wedding went against everything both families stood for. The Nott's having always married those of Slytherin Descent and the Patil's always having married those of Indian descent. But one would be wrong to say that the wedding wasn't a huge success. _

"_I never really thought I would marry a Gryffindor" says Theodore Nott at the reception of his wedding to Parvati Patil yesterday afternoon. "But for the sake of the pure blood race I'm happy to consent to it."_

Seamus tossed the paper aside angrily. "Not only do they have to _marry_ each other, they have to consummate the marriage within _a month!_ That is pretty much borderline rape!" Dean shook his head, too disgusted to talk. "At least Nott looks relatively happy, look at the smile on his face." Seamus continued, pointing to the moving picture of Theodore and Parvati walking out of the wedding.

"Are you kidding me?" Dean asked "That's not a happy smile, that's an _oh great a new sex toy_ smile"

"I thought it looked slightly funny, the smile that is." Seamus said, pulling himself up from the couch and walking out of the living room. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna go and have my shower now."

Dean waved him off, still immensely pissed off at the article that sat in front of him. His Parvati had been married off to a Slytherin, the same Slytherin that had hexed us on countless occasions, the same Slytherin who had helped the death eaters at the battle those four long years ago and had only got off because he was underage at the time. He screwed up the paper angrily and tossed it into the fire where he watched it burn.

* * *

**Parvati**

Parvati tried not to touch him as they both got out of the car that had transported them to their new home. He was vile. She thanked the driver softly as Theodore waved his wand and all of their things flew out of the back of the truck and into the house, having to rearrange themselves into single file when they reached the front door, there was a few bangs and crashes from inside before there was silence.

Theodore turned and paid both drivers a generous amount of galleons.

"Good day Mr and Mrs Nott." They said, before retreating to their vehicles and driving off. Parvati shuddered. _Mrs Nott_ she hated that name with a passion, she wasn't supposed to be _Mrs Nott_ she hadn't even intended to be married until she was at _least_ twenty-five, but then the ministry had introduced this horrid rule. That two pure bloods would be forced into marriage and to top it all off, they had to consummate it within a month. Parvati was still a virgin, and losing her virginity to a man she had not only never spoken to, but a man that she hated almost made her throw up.

"Come along Parvati dear." Theodore called from the front doorstep, "our house is waiting to be lived in!"

Parvati forced her legs to move. She walked stiffly across the neatly cut lawn towards the door, dreading what was to happen when she went inside. Theodore seemed a little _too_ happy about this marriage for her liking. She had no idea why, it went against everything he stood for, but there he was, no media around at all and he was perfectly cheerful.

The house was nice enough. It was quite cosy, with a little kitchen at the end of the hallway which had several rooms leading off it. She saw Theodore disappear into the master bedroom and forced herself to follow him, fear growing in her chest at every step she took. She had no idea what this man was like, what he liked, what he disliked, if he was nice or mean, though she was leaning towards the latter seeing as he was placed in Slytherin. She put her bag down beside the door as Theodore unpacked his boxes with a wave of his wand, whistling a horrible tune all the while.

Parvati turned and walked out of the room, wanting to escape into the bathroom. But no sooner had she taken two steps, she found herself pinned up against the wall. She tried to scream but couldn't, a hand was clamped over her mouth. She turned her head slowly, looking where no-one ever wants to look, the corner of their eye. She saw Theodore behind her, breathing heavily, that manic smile still plastered on his face.

"Now, you will listen to me very carefully." He whispered in her face, showering her with spit and the smell of tobacco. "Bedroom, now, I want you naked on the bed within five minutes."

Parvati shook her head as best she could before her head was slammed back into the wall by Theodore's fist. "You will do as I tell you!" he roared "UNDERSTAND!"

Parvati stood her ground, her nose stinging where he had hit her. She felt his hand come across her face in a hard slap. "I said, do you understand?"

"No! I most certainly do not understand!" Parvati said, trying to bring some sort of authority into her voice as Theodore pushed her up against the wall, bruising her shoulder blades in the process. "Why should I consent to sex with you when I don't even know the slightest thing about you."

Another punch, this time to the gut. Parvati doubled over in pain as Theodore pushed her to the ground. "You worthless piece of shit, _I _am the authority in this marriage, not you and I may do to you whatever I please."

"I have rights you know!" Parvati gasped "This is abuse."

"Not in my family it's not, this is discipline, now you will do as I say or I will lock you in the cellar." Theodore said, bending down to whisper in her ear.

"I'd rather go in the cellar." Parvati spat. Theodore roared angrily, seizing her around the waist and swinging her over his shoulder. Parvati screamed as loud as she could, fighting tooth and nail to get away from him, to get out of the house and back to her parents where she was safe. Theodore threw her down on the double bed in the bedroom and locked the door behind him. She knew there was no escape, she could feel bruises rising all over her body but there was no way she was going to consent to having _sex_ with this man, she would rather die. She hurried over to the window as Theodore took off his shirt. She desperately tried to open it but it was no good, it had been sealed shut and her wand was in her bag. She turned away, horrified as Theodore slipped off his trousers and started coming towards her. Parvati closed her eyes, knowing that the only escape was her mind. She thought of Padma and her little nephew Isaac, she thought of dancing with Harry at the Yule Ball, She thought of Voldemort's defeat, but most of all, she thought of Dean Thomas, her first boyfriend and how much she wished she'd stayed in contact with him.

* * *

**AN: I'm such an idiot aren't I? I can't keep up with my updates of other, older stories and now I start a new one? AM I CRAZY? The answer is yes by the way. Well here's a story that has been bugging me ever since I thought of a title for it and the plot wondered into my head while I was on a **_**verrryyy **_**long car ride and I planned pretty much all of it on my phone as my School **_**still**_** hasn't given us back our laptops yet! Here *throws story at you* have some Dean/Parvati while you wait for the rest to be updated. Hehehe. Just so you know, this was just a prologue/introductiony type thing so it's short, but I'm aiming for about 4k-6k (possibly even 8k) word chapters, so the next one will be looooonnnngggg.**

**Also, the trigger warning at the top, Yes, it includes all of those things, but **_**very**_** mild. There will be no description of sex and/or rape as that is smut and I don't write that. So **_**please**_** don't ask me why the story is rated T instead of M because the story isn't graphic enough to be bumped up to an M rating. **

**Reviews are **_**always**_** valued and appreciated.**

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~ **


	2. If We Ever Meet Again

Chapter 2  
If We Ever Meet Again

_December 13__th__ 2001_

**Dean**

"Oi, Seamus!" Dean yelled, tossing a pillow at the sleeping boy on the couch. "We're late!"

Seamus made a muffled sound into his pillow and promptly pulled the blankets back over his head. Dean rolled his eyes as he swung his legs over the edge of his couch and headed over to the window and drew the curtains.

The light seeped into every corner of the room, making Dean shield his eyes and Seamus mumble something which included some very colourful swear words.

Stepping over discarded clothes on the floor from when the two of them couldn't be bothered to tidy up, he walked over to the kitchen and began preparing breakfast. "Get up, Seamus. You'll be late for work for the millionth time." Dean said, turning back around to face the tiny living room where the two of them slept and flicking is wand at Seamus' doona which rose off him immediately and folded itself in the corner.

"Fuck off." Seamus said, turning over and burying his head back in his pillow. Dean shook his head and pulled two dirty plates out of the sink and vanishing the old food in them with his wand. Neither of the two boys could be bothered to wash up the dishes every night after dinner as both of them were incredibly lazy and after work, both of them were completely exhausted and had a lot of paper work to do. Things like doing the dishes and cleaning up the apartment just didn't happen.

Dean looked around the tiny one roomed apartment. It had been all that he and Seamus could afford when they'd decided to room together after they'd finished Hogwarts and got jobs at the ministry. Dean often wondered why they didn't buy a bigger one now that they both had more money, but they were happy here nonetheless.

They lived in a small neighbourhood in Chiswick, London. To their knowledge they were one of only three magical households which made levitating the groceries up the stairs a little harder than it should've been. In fact, they had resigned themselves to carrying them up the many stairs the muggle way.

The toast popped out of the toaster and Dean flicked his wand at it so that it soared across the kitchen, landed on the two plates and immediately started to butter themselves.

There was a tapping on the window and Dean looked up to see one of the ministry owls that delivered the Daily Prophet that morning. He felt a rush of hot June air hit his face as he pushed it open and the owl flew inside, swooping across the room to drop the paper on Seamus' head and fluttered back into the kitchen and sticking it's leg out for Dean to put a knut in it.

"Hang on," Dean said, hurrying to the door to get his money pouch out of his bag. The owl clicked its beak impatiently, no doubt that it had other _Daily Prophets_ to deliver. "I'm coming, I'm coming." Dean said, wincing as the paper hit him in the back of the head as he passed Seamus' couch as he tried to extract a knut from all of his sickles.

"There you go." Dean said to the owl, placing the knut into its pouch. Finally satisfied, the owl flew back out of the window without so much as a hoot of thanks.

"Breakfast," Dean said, plonking the toast down in front of Seamus who still hadn't moved from his sleeping position, despite the fact that he had no blanket any more.

"Thanks." Seamus muttered as Dean retrieved the _Daily Prophet_ and sat down to read it with his breakfast.

He glanced over the headlines briefly, nothing catching his attention before thumbing through the paper, occasionally reading an article that Rita Skeeter had so clearly messed with. It made him laugh a little as what she had written was so much more eccentric than the event probably was.

Downing his tea, Dean waved his wand at his plate and mug and directed it at the sink where it joined the stack of dirty dishes that they probably should try to wash up sometime soon.

"Seamus if you don't get up and eat your breakfast within the next minute you will be late." Dean said, picking some clothes up off the floor and heading into the bathroom. Seamus grunted in response.

Seamus would probably sleep all day if Dean wasn't there to wake him up each morning. Dean splashed cold water on his face and slipped into some jeans and a t-shirt. Being an auror, he had no idea whether or not there would be a case that day or not and he had learned quickly that nobody wore their suits to work unless they knew that there was a case. Dean's suit lived in his locker, as did everyone else's suits in the auror department. They would all quickly don them if word came around about a break in at Diagon alley, a fight between a wizard and a muggle, where they might have to wipe some memories, or on the rarest occasion, the dementors at Azkaban going wild and sucking the souls out of everyone in the prison. Being an auror was most certainly not a boring job, but the paperwork was horrendous!

"I hate work." Seamus yawned as Dean walked out of the bathroom, "Why couldn't they give me a decent job at The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?"

"Seamus," Dean said, looking disbelievingly at his friend, "You applied for a job at the Department of Experimental Charms… what job were they supposed to give you other than the one you applied for?"

"Well, I thought it would be more experimenting with charms, but no we help people who experiment with charms and reverse the effects, not quite the ideal job that I imagined." Seamus grumbled and Dean glanced furtively at the clock.

"I'm late, so I'm going to go now." Dean said, plucking his keys off the table by the door, opening it and stepping out into the corridor, "Don't take too long or I'll get a full on Spanish inquisition at work as to where you are."

"Spanish inquisition?" Seamus asked.

"Muggle history," Dean said, rolling his eyes, "you know it wouldn't hurt you to open a book once in a while."

"Books are boring." Seamus said.

"With that attitude you will get nowhere." Dean called as he shut the door behind him, shaking his head at Seamus' antics. He knew that Seamus would eventually get up and make his way to work in his own sweet time. It didn't really matter for him as, judging by the times that Dean had been down there; the members of that department only got a call once a week and spent most of their time flying paper planes at each other to stave off the boredom.

He quickened his pace down the stairs of the building, waving at old Mrs Cribbins as she walked up the stairs. Mrs Cribbins was one of the other witches in the area, meaning the wink that she gave him as he passed her was one that was slightly reprimanding for being late for auror duty.

Dean wished that when he and Seamus had decided to rent the flat that they had noticed that it didn't have a fireplace, meaning that Dean had to walk down the road to a deserted alleyway which the Ministry had declared the apparition safe point for Chiswick.

Seamus thought it was ridiculous that they were given no legitimate reason why they weren't allowed to disapparated from their own homes, but secretly Dean thought that the ministry was heading in somewhat the right direction.

With apparition safe points, people could only apparate in or out of the place that they were going to or leaving through a single point in the suburb. Granted, it wasn't the most fool proof situation, it was riddled with disadvantages and dangers, not to mention that it was a complete inconvenience for everyone in the neighbourhood who needed to use it, but nobody complained, because after the war if the ministry was taking extra precautions to protect people, nobody was going to argue, especially now that Kingsley Shacklebolt was the Minister of Magic.

Dean reached the alleyway and hurried down it until he reached a piece of corrugated iron, which marked the start of the zone where he could apparate to the ministry (the best part about working for the auror office was the fact that he was granted immediate apparition, which meant that Dean didn't have to suffer through the tedious security protocols that the ministry had set up after the war.

Turning on the spot, Dean focussed on the chair behind his desk in the auror office where he could sit back and relax until someone called him on a case. Well, everyone else could relax, he was given all of the paperwork until the next batch of amateurs came in and Dean could pass over the work to them.

In the years following the war there had been a rush of people wanting to become aurors, so the ministry had decided to take double the amount of participants, but only every three years which lead to nobody wanting to wait another three years to go into auror training, leaving them with no new aurors.

Dean appeared in his office seconds later and sat down at his chair, pulling out the file that he had been organising the previous day.

"Thomas!"

Dean looked up, surprised to see his supervisor and head of the auror office, Nicholas Darzky, walking towards him. He had never spoken to Mr Darzky before, not even when he'd been in the auror training facility.

"Yes, sir?" Dean said, abandoning the file and looking up at his superior.

"No paperwork today Thomas, we've had a muggle break into Diagon Alley with a couple of friends and rob the apothecary. There'll be a few memory charms dished out I daresay. We need you to invent a cover story and hand them over to the muggle police."

"I can do that, sir." Dean said, quickly packing up the file and stowing back into his draw, grateful to be allowed to get away from his desk.

"Good to hear, Thomas. But please get changed beforehand, we can't have aurors on the streets in jeans and a t-shirt. People might not recognise you."

"Yes sir, of course sir." Dean said politely watching Darzky go. He immediately rushed off to his locker and pulled out the suit that had been in there gathering dust since his third week at work when he'd finally caught on that he didn't have to wear one.

"Dean Thomas?"

Dean wheeled around to see two aurors who had been in the training facility with them. He couldn't quite remember their names but both of them had a bad reputation for being tough.

"That's me." Dean said, smiling at them. They just looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

"I'm Franklin Aurelius and this is Yves Mondine, we're going to be accompanying you on this." The slightly larger one said.

"Great," Dean said, "I'll just go and change into this and I'll be right with you."

"Hurry up." Yves Mondine said.

Turning away, Dean sighed. This was going to be a long day.

* * *

**Parvati**

Parvati surveyed herself in the bathroom mirror.

The purple bruises decorated her body from where Theodore had used her as a punching bag.

Cuts from six months ago were forced open again and again and slowly oozed blood from them.

She touched a bruise on her shoulder and rubbed some cream on it. Cream was all that she had left. Theodore had taken her wand on the first day that she had moved in with him.

She hadn't seen her family in half a year, she hadn't left the house without Theodore by her side and she most certainly didn't have a job anymore.

She sometimes wondered how she had gone from a successful business woman at the Department of Foreign Affairs to being a slave in her own household. _ Oh yeah._ She reminded herself bitterly, _stupid marriage laws._

On the rare occasion that she managed to scrounge a paper from the rubbish bin and read it she saw more and more pure bloods being forced into marrying each other. She saw girls her age and younger being forced into cars after their weddings in the pictures. Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini were forced together, Rose Zeller and Dennis Creevy were assigned to each other, Susan Bones and Ernie McMillan, Ron Weasley point blank refused to marry Astoria Greengrass to the point where several supervisors were injured, so their first Borns were promised to each other. Each time she opened the _Daily Prophet_ she saw more and more people being added to the list of forced marriages.

At least some of them were good matches. Susan and Ernie had been dating for years before this law was introduced so their marriage would've just come a little sooner that they had anticipated.

"Oi, Parvati, get me another beer! And make sure it's cold this time, bitch!" she heard Theodore call from the kitchen. She sighed as she pulled her dressing gown towards her and wrapped it around herself. That's all Theodore did, drink, yell at her, beat her and rape her. Parvati didn't know whether or not it was classed as rape anymore if she consented to it.

"Hurry up you bloody whore! I'm not going to live forever." Theodore demanded and she heard his fist come down hard on the table. She hurried out of the bathroom and headed towards the fridge. She knew there were cold beers in there as she had restocked it last night.

"You took your bloody time! You're going to be the death of me you stupid woman." Theodore said as Parvati used a bottle opener to pop the bottle open.

"Aren't you going to apologise?" Theodore asked, Parvati didn't make a noise. Theodore sighed exasperatedly, "Stupid bitch, you need to learn some manners. Now give me my beer."

Filled with hot rage, Parvati made it look like she was having trouble opening the bottle, spat into it and preceded to hand it to Theodore who took a long sip from it.

Brimming with satisfaction, Parvati forced a smile off her face as Theodore chugged down the whole beer. She didn't know what he saw in the muggle beverage; maybe it kept him smashed for longer? Maybe it was just cheaper. Parvati had no clue; she'd learnt not to oppose him or she'd get a beating.

"Cover up your damn bruises woman, we're going into Diagon Alley today for some stupid 'six months on' shit for the fuckin' _Daily Prophet_." Theodore said. Slamming the bottle down on the table he pointed a shaking finger at her, "If you say a single word about our 'activities' I'll lock you in the fuckin' cellar when we get back and you won't be fed for a week."

Parvati nodded slowly, hoping that he could feel the cold hate from her eyes boring into his soul and freezing his black heart.

"Well then, hurry up! We're going in ten minutes and I don't want a single sign of those bruises." He reminded as Parvati walked slowly away back into the bedroom with only one thought in her mind; running away from this horrible life that she now lead.

* * *

Smiling for the cameras wasn't easy. Not when Parvati was in so much pain on the inside. She hated lying to the Daily Prophet and saying that she loved being married to Theodore. She hated his arm around her shoulders as the cameras took their pictures. She hated everything about him, every single hair on his head.

The cameras were never ending and her chance to slip away was becoming slimmer until Rita Skeeter called Theodore away for a private interview. Parvati saw her chance.

Making sure that people weren't looking at her, she quietly slipped behind a bookshelf. It was a perfect escape route to the back door of the shop… if the counter wasn't in the way.

"Hey, Parvati!" she heard a familiar cheery voice say. She wheeled around to see none other than Dean Thomas walking towards her, beaming his head off.

"Dean!" Parvati whispered, "Oh boy am I glad to see you again."

"How are you?" Dean asked, moving to hug her. Parvati winced as he brushed against her bruises. "You alright?" he asked, noticing the way that she cringed away from him.

Parvati shot a furtive glance at Rita Skeeter, making sure that she still had Theodore occupied.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked, his brow creasing. Parvati bit her lip, she had to tell someone, but how would she do that without Theodore knowing, because he always knew.

"I hate him." Parvati said, coming to a conclusion about how to say it.

"I don't say I blame you." Dean said darkly, glaring in Theodore's direction. "What's it like?"

"Horrible," Parvati said, shooting another glance at Theodore to make sure that he wasn't looking at her, "I wish I could just run away."

"Oi, Thomas! You're supposed to be on duty, not chatting up girls!" Parvati heard someone yell from outside. Dean looked torn between his colleagues and staying and talking to Parvati.

Dean pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and scribbled something on it.

"Here," he said, handing it to her, "This is my address, floo me some time and we can talk properly. I really should be helping out with the break in at the apothecary but I saw you come in here and couldn't resist coming to talk to you."

Parvati slipped the paper up her sleeve, "Thank you." Parvati said. "It's been ages since I've had human interaction."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing." Parvati said, shaking her head. She'd already said too much.

"Thomas, come on, are you an auror or a prostitute, we're on duty here!"

"I'm coming Aurelius!" Dean said, turning away from Parvati and walking out of the store.

"I'll talk to you soon, okay." Dean said, just as he reached the top step, "Just call me if you need to have someone to talk to." And with a nod, he was gone

"Thank you Dean," She muttered. Just like that she started to feel like there might be some sort of light in the dark path that she was being forced down.

* * *

**AN: Well the bi-weekly updates were a fail weren't they? **

**I would like to thank Laux14 and Alarice Tey for getting this back on track with the ' Multichapter Forced Marriage Competition' and the 'Almost Like a Novel Multichapter story challenge' **

**This has also been entered in a few other competitions, which probably means that once Light of Day is finished, this will become priority. Yay!**

**I'm very sorry for the four month wait and I hope that you'll forgive me and keep on reading :)**

**I would absolutely love it if you could leave me some feedback in a review. **

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	3. Run

Chapter 3  
Run

"Hey, Dean, I need to talk to you," Seamus said as Dean cleaned up the kitchen after he had arrived home that night.

"Did you get fired? Because if you did, I will seriously smash this plate over your head," Dean said

"Why do you always automatically assume that I'm in trouble?" Seamus said exasperatedly.

"Because, more often than not, you are," Dean said, sitting down on his couch, "What do you want?"

"I'm moving out," Seamus said simply.

"Okay," Dean said slowly, "What brought this on?"

"Lavender and I have decided that we want to move in with each other. We've been together since seventh year and we figured it might be time to move to the next step in our relationship," Seamus shrugged.

"Alright then," Dean said, shrugging back and getting up off the couch and making his way back over to the dirty dishes in the sink, "When are you moving?"

"On the weekend," Seamus said, looking relieved that Dean hadn't taken his moving in with Lavender badly, "We've been looking for a place for ages and Lav just found one today. The owners haven't lived in it for ages so we're moving in as soon as possible."

Dean didn't know what to say, so he continued to siphon the food off the plates.

"You're not mad are you?" Seamus asked.

"No, of course not," Dean said, shaking his head, "You're at perfect liberty to do whatever you want, if you want to move in with Lavender then don't let me stop you."

"Thanks mate," Seamus said, clapping Dean on the back, "What's for dinner?"

"I don't know, it's your turn to cook," Dean said with a slight grin at his friend.

"Then we're getting takeaway," Seamus said, "What do you want?"

"I don't mind," Dean said, shrugging as Seamus headed towards the door, "Get whatever."

Seamus nodded as he shut the door behind him. Dean looked around the apartment. It was small and messy, just like it had been this morning when he had left for work, nothing had changed. So why did he feel so different?

It wasn't because Seamus had told him that he was moving in with Lavender, he wasn't fazed at all by that. Maybe it was because for once he didn't have to stress over paperwork that he had been bringing home with him for the last year of working in the auror office, maybe it was because he had seen Parvati again for the first time in so long, he didn't know.

His thoughts settled on Parvati. It had been a dream come true to see her again, but he couldn't help but worry about her; It was the middle of June and the only people that were seen in jeans and long sleeved shirts in summer were those who were going to work, and Parvati most definitely hadn't been at work.

No matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was over Parvati, he still couldn't help but feel something for her, a little lurch in his stomach every time he read her name in the paper or thought about the year that he had dated her. Yes, it was safe to say that he was definitely still nursing a soft spot for her.

When he had spoken to her in Diagon Alley she had looked absolutely miserable and hurt. He could hardly blame her. She was married to Theodore Nott for god's sake, who wouldn't be miserable? But the way that she had flinched away from him when he had tried to hug her told Dean that there was something going on that she was hiding, he hoped that she would floo him soon so that they could talk properly…

* * *

Parvati stared down at the little piece of paper that Dean had hastily scribbled down his address on and looked sadly at the fire that she had just lit with her bare hands moments before. She had no idea where Theodore kept the floo powder, only that if she asked for it, he would be sure to say no and hide it somewhere that she would never find, and when Theodore said that she would never find it, she would never find it. Six months later and she was still looking for her wand.

Parvati stuffed the piece of paper hastily up her sleeve as Theodore walked into the living room.

"Make me steak for dinner," Theodore ordered.

"What's the magic word," Parvati said bitterly, still, after all this time refusing to give in to his bullying and torments.

Within seconds, she found herself being blasted backwards across the room, "Don't you get fresh with me you little bitch," Theodore spat, "Now make me steak."

Parvati bit down hard on her lip as she picked herself up from the ground. Her head was throbbing from where she had hit the wall and she was fairly sure that more bruises would've arisen by morning. Tears threatened to spill over but she couldn't let Theodore see her cry, it was as sign of weakness and she was not going to have him think of her as weak.

Theodore sat down in the chair next to the fire and summoned a firewhiskey from the fridge as Parvati pulled on her apron and shakily pulled out the meat that was stocked in the fridge.

The pain in her head was slowly becoming worse and worse with every movement that she made and it took all of her willpower not to wince as she knew that Theodore's eyes were still on her, watching for any sign of weakness that he might be able to act upon.

She kept her eyes focussed on the meat that was now cooking in front of her despite the fact that she felt sick and her vision was starting to blur, she suspected that she'd suffered a bad concussion at the very least. She turned her back to Theodore on the pretence of chopping up potatoes as tears leaked out of her eyes as the pain started to become overwhelming. She didn't know how much longer she could take this.

A snuffling snore from behind her made her jump a few feet in the air as she wheeled around, brandishing the knife that she was holding, only to see Theodore grunt in his sleep again.

She breathed a sigh of relief and crouched down, putting a hand to her head and letting the tears flow as silently as she could. Theodore falling asleep was a rare luxury and Parvati was determined to make the most of it. She moved her hands from her head and surveyed them underneath the light. They glistened with blood.

Making sure that the steak was still cooking on the stove and that Theodore was most definitely asleep, she slipped up the hall to the bathroom, where she kept a small first aid kit for treating the bruises and cuts that she received from her brutal marriage to Theodore.

Wincing, she poured water over her head to clean the wound and proceeded to dab it with an alcohol wipe until it stopped stinging. She had trained herself to live with pain. It was her friend now, a friend that constantly hurt her.

She didn't know what else she could do. She wasn't a healer and the most she knew about treating injuries was putting a Band-Aid on a scrape.

Thinking that she'd better not risk her luck, she darted back into the kitchen relieved to see that Theodore was still snoring away in his chair. She quickly set about cooking an adjacent dinner for herself for later. She never ate with Theodore and he always decided what she would eat.

She quickly mashed up one of the cooked potatoes, mixed with mayonnaise and shovelled into her mouth quickly; she placed the other two in the cupboard underneath the sink with the vegetables that she had gathered for her dinner.

She could hear Theodore's breathing become less deep and knew that he was about to wake up. Her head throbbing painfully, she quickly flipped the steak onto a plate and put a few peas around the side as Theodore slowly came to….

* * *

"See you mate," Dean said to Seamus as he stood at the door to their – now Dean's – apartment, "You're welcome back here any time."

"Thanks," Seamus smiled, shaking Dean's hand.

"Good luck with Lavender," Dean said as Seamus picked up his suitcase, "and try not to get her pregnant, you're only twenty-one."

Seamus punched Dean rather forcefully on his shoulder, "Don't make me hurt you," he said seriously, "that's not something that we should joke about at all."

"Why?" Dean asked, "Are you planning on it?"

"No!" Seamus said, "God you're impossible."

The horn sounded from Lavender's car down at the road.

"That's me," Seamus said starting to head off towards the stairs.

"Have fun," Dean said, raising one hand in farewell as Seamus disappeared down the stairs. Just like that, he was gone.

Dean headed back inside his apartment. It was cleaner than it had been in three years. It was only now that he was gone did Dean realise that the mess he was so often embarrassed about was all Seamus' and Seamus owned half the amount of things that Dean did.

Seamus had been gone from the apartment plenty of times before, but it was something about the knowledge that he wasn't coming back to live that made Dean slightly sad. The two of them had been roommates ever since they were eleven years old and to suddenly not have a roommate made the apartment feel large and empty, despite how small it was.

Dean didn't know how to feel, he was happy that he finally had his own space, but sad that Seamus was gone.

He walked over to the cupboards and grabbed one a fizzing whisbee out of the jar on the top shelf and popped it into his mouth, savouring the taste.

It was only then that he realised that he didn't know what to do with himself now that he had nobody to speak to or interact with. He never ate fizzing whsibees when it wasn't a special occasion.

It was silent, almost too silent and Dean hadn't been around silence ever. He had an older sister and two younger ones, he had always had some sort of noise penetrating his eardrums.

I flicked his wand at the wizarding wireless which immediately turned itself on and tuned into the nearest wizarding radio station, which happened to beThe Comedy Hour with Lee Jordan.

_This will have to do_, Dean thought, _for now._

* * *

Parvati was an expert at making her mind drift apart from her body. So much so that she was only just aware that her body was being violated. Tonight, however, she couldn't manage to separate her mind from her body and she felt everything.

Theodore's mouth was all over her face, kissing her hungrily as he fondled her breasts. Parvati struggled and struggled, but her attempts were futile – he was much too strong for her.

Her arms were pinned to her sides and her legs were being forced apart by Theodore's other wondering hand. She knew what was coming next and she knew that it wasn't going to be pleasant, it never was.

She tried to force her mind to go elsewhere, to think of happy thoughts and good times before this stupid marriage law had been introduced but it didn't work, it was almost like there was something blocking it from happening.

"Do you reckon you could say something?" Theodore said as he thrust in and out quickly, "Honestly, it's like I'm rooting a corpse or something."

Parvati grunted slightly as she moved her leg inwards a little bit, positioning it right under his groin, a plan formulating in her head as she did so. She knew why she couldn't make her imagination take her away. It was the stupid gash on the back of her head, but the stupid gash had also made her realise something else, instead of lying down and taking it with only minimal struggle, she could try and run away. It might fail, but nothing could be worse than the conditions that she was living in now, could they and besides, with the running away option she had a fifty percent chance at freedom.

She waited until Theodore had hit his climax and pulled out of her. Seconds afterwards she pulled her knee up and into his groin as fast and as hard as she could.

He let out a loud yell and rolled off her, clutching at his balls. Sitting up, Parvati swung her fist into his temple, feeling her knuckles bruising in the process, it payed off, however because after a few seconds, Theodore lapsed into unconsciousness.

Feeling slightly triumphant, Parvati scrambled around the room for her clothes. She pulled them on quickly, not stopping to turn her shirt around the right way – she didn't know when Theodore might wake up again.

She ran for the door, only stopping to grab Theodore's wand. _A wand for a wand_ she thought menacingly as she twirled the stick of wood in between her fingers, making sure that the piece of paper that had Dean's address on it was still in her pocket.

She knew exactly where she was going from here.

* * *

**AN: Apologies for suckyness! This is really just a filler chapter because I really don't know where I'm going with this… and I'm really really tired so it wasn't going to be much good anyway. **

**I would really appreciate it if you could take the time to review and please don't favourite/alert without reviewing :)**

**Also, I'm considering bumping this up to an M rating because I'm not sure what will make its way in here now... we'll see what the next chapter brings. **

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	4. Cry

Chapter 4  
Cry

Parvati didn't know where she was. It was pitch black; either all the streetlights were out or she wasn't anywhere near a suburban area. She could barely see her own hand in front of her face and the crunching sounds that pierced the silence of the night when she stepped told her that she was on some kind of gravel pathway.

She stumbled and almost fell face first, but caught herself at the last second. Frustratedly, she pulled out Theodore's wand and lit it. It cast an eerie glow over what she now saw was a narrow, gravel alleyway with brick walls that stretched up over twenty metres over her head. A sense of foreboding quickly washed over her as she pointed the wand ahead of her and saw nothing but looming darkness. Her heart hammered at a hundred miles an hour as she took several tentative steps forward. In some ways, having the light was scarier than having no light, at least then she wouldn't know what was around her and more importantly, what was around her couldn't see her.

She had no idea where she was. She had just run in the direction of the main road when she had left Theodore's place, but it hadn't been long before she had lost her way and ended up here. As she walked along, casting the wand light as high as she could she started to hear the sound of an approaching vehicle. The crunch of gravel however, was absent, which meant that Parvati was close to an asphalt road again. Sure enough, as she rounded the corner, she saw that she had reached what looked like a highway in which what she now recognised as the main road that ran straight through London.

She had made it.

Exhausted from the long journey, she collapsed gratefully against one of the walls of the alleyway to catch her breath, a smile spreading across her face.

"Did you really think you could evade me?"

The gruff voice made Parvati jump out of her skin as she scrambled backwards, trying to use the wall as a support. She would recognise that voice anywhere.

The big, hulking shape of Theodore Nott loomed into view and Parvati just about peed herself although she was pleased to see that his eye was puffy and slightly bruised along with the side of his head.

"You little bitch," he said, picking her up by her hair and swinging her around so that she could not run out onto the road, "How fucking dare you hit me and run away, how fucking dare you take my wand," he said as Parvati's hand tightened around it in her pocket, wincing as the hair pulled against the wound on the back of her head.

"How did you find me," Parvati hissed menacingly, fighting to keep her face void of pain. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"You really are as stupid as you look, aren't you?" Theodore laughed, "I had a tracker placed on my wand as soon as we moved into that house because I knew that once I'd taken yours, you'd try to go for mine, and I was right," Theodore said, letting go of Parvati's hair and putting his hand out for his wand.

Parvati hesitated for a second, and then shook her head slowly, her grip tightening on the stick of wood in her pocket, all manner of spells that she could use against him going through her head.

She felt his fist connect roughly with her cheekbone, pain ripping through it as the force of it knocked her to the ground.

"Give it back or I swear I will kill you right now," Theodore said, looming over her as Parvati attempted to pick herself up.

She glared at him, "You're going to do it anyway, so why wait?" she hissed. Theodore let out a cry of rage and threw himself at her, his fists flailing in every direction, pummelling every part of flesh that he could reach. She curled up in a ball, protecting her head, one hand still in her pocket as blow after blow rained down on her.

"_Stupefy_," she managed, whipping the wand out at the very last second before Theodore was surely about to deliver a crushing blow to her head. He froze and keeled over, almost as if someone had hit him from behind.

Parvati didn't hesitate. She jumped up as quickly as she could – which, given the circumstances, was not very quickly at all – and limped to the end of the alleyway where there was a footpath and a place where she could be seen by people. Tears stung in her eyes and she could feel blood running down her face and into her mouth. Every part of her ached and she just wished that she could collapse, but she had to keep going; she had to find Dean.

Tossing the wand aside – she couldn't use it anymore if Theodore could track her with it – she consulted the piece of paper that Dean had given her. Looking up, she could see the London Eye and the Thames river and knew that his apartment was somewhere to the west of that. Pinching her nose to stem the flow of blood, she flung out her wand arm, in hopes that the Knight bus might appear to pick her up, regardless of the fact that she didn't have a wand in her possession anymore.

Sure enough, the bright purple, triple decker bus appeared out of thin air next to her.

"Welcome to the Knight bus, emergency transport for a stranded witch or wizard, my name is Oliver Pringle and I will be your conductor for this evening," the young wizard at the door said, he didn't look much older than Parvati herself.

She pushed past him, not wanting her current state to be seen in much detail.

"Where you headed girlie?" Oliver Pringle said, following her up to the front of the bus where she lay down on a bed, face first. She handed him the slip of paper and Oliver called it out to the driver and proceeded to try to strike up conversation with Parvati. She didn't respond, silently hoping that she wouldn't leave blood on the sheets when she got up.

With a bang, the Knight bus jumped from the main road to a quiet street in which most of the lights were out. Parvati felt the beds in the bus slide a few feet forward as the driver stamped on the brakes.

"'Ere you are then girlie, that'll be six sickles," Oliver said. It was then that Parvati realised that she didn't have any money. She looked slowly up at Oliver from the bed as she raised herself off it.

"Holy shit," Oliver said, looking her up and down, taking in the bloody nose and the puffy eye, "What 'appened to you then?"

"Nothing," Parvati said quickly, looking back down again, her black hair sweeping back into her face, hiding the injuries.

"You call tha' nothing," Oliver exclaimed, "'alf your bleedin' face is all puffed up, innit?!"

"I'm fine," Parvati said softly, even though she felt the complete opposite.

"Look, consider this one on me, you go inside there and make sure that you look after yourself alright?" Oliver said in a low voice.

Parvati glanced back up at him with thankful eyes before quickly turning her eyes to the ground again.

"Go on," Oliver said, "Get outta 'ere."

Parvati managed to pull herself up off the bed and used the railing for assistance to get over to the door and out onto the pavement. As the Knight bus drove off she could see Oliver looking at her with concern through the window.

Parvati consulted the piece of paper again for the unit number. 4/32. She scanned the street looking for the unit block with a large number 32 on it. It was hard to see as most of the street had gone to bed. Parvati had no idea what time it was, but she guessed that it was either very late, or very early.

Finally locating the large, red block of apartments, she stumbled towards the door, grateful that it was one that was always open regardless of what time. Dean lived at number six, which was on the third floor, judging by the fact that there were two homes to each floor.

She began the excruciating experience of getting up the stairs. She tried to hold her tears back and mask the pain like she had practised for months now, before realising that she didn't have to anymore.

She let down her barriers and let the tears flow and the pain show as she hauled herself up the stairs, her chest hurting with each breath and every part of her that had come into contact with Theodore's fist throbbing painfully. She let out a loud sob and her body began to shake with them. She couldn't give up now, she had come so far and to let herself be defeated by some silly stairs would go against everything that she stood for; fighting.

Eventually, after much crying, thoughts of giving up, pain and determination, Parvati reached the third floor landing. Hauling herself up by the railing she limped over to the door with a brass number six on it, hoping that Dean was still awake.

Raising her fist exhaustedly, she knocked twice.

There was a rustling from inside and footsteps coming towards the door. Parvati let out a long breath of relief as the door was unlocked and opened in front of her.

"Parvati!" Dean said in shock as she gave him a weary smile and collapsed straight over the threshold of his house.

* * *

_Shit_, Dean thought as Parvati's knees buckled from beneath her and she collapsed forwards. He just managed to catch her before she hit the ground. _Oh my god, what the fuck is happening?_ He managed to get his arms under Parvati's and half carry, half drag her towards the couch that had once been Seamus's

He placed her down as gently as he could and pulled the blankets off of his couch and threw them over the top of her as he took in the sight before him.

Her normally beautiful, flawless face was bruised, swollen and bloody and her breathing was ragged and shallow. Dean immediately started to panic, he had no idea what to do.

He glanced at the clock on the mantle which showed that it was two in the morning, much too early to call Lavender, who was a healer, and ask for advice on what to do, much too early to floo to St Mungo's and get professional help – the minor injuries department closed at eleven, and given the extent of some injuries in the magical world, Parvati's were minor injuries.

He could take her to the local muggle hospital, but he had no means of transporting her and no muggle money. He would just have to take care of her himself until morning.

Hurrying into the kitchen, he wet a clean towel, wrung it out and started to dab at the cuts on Parvati's face. He knew one spell from his Auror training that would help them to heal, but they had to be clean first.

He just couldn't help but wonder who – or what, had done this to her. Surely it wouldn't have been Theodore. Dean knew Theodore's antics and if it was him doing this to her, she would never be able to tell a soul.

He turned away to dip the tea towel into the bowl of water beside him when Parvati's eyes fluttered open.

Her first reaction was to flinch and cower away from him as he started to sponge at her head again.

"D-Dean," she muttered tiredly.

"Hey," Dean said with a smile, moving to brush her hair off her forehead. She sat up quickly and scarpered away from him, "What's wrong?" he asked with concern.

"I-I just need a place to stay," she said timidly.

"Well you're always welcome here," Dean said, "Seamus moved out yesterday so I've got room and all but Parvati… what happened?"

Parvati shook her head, a lump rising in her throat.

"Parvati," Dean said slowly, moving closer to her and she flinched backwards again, almost as if it was out of instinct, "Don't try and tell me that you fell into a bush or something because your hair is matted in blood and you've got scars all over your face underneath all of those cuts and bruises."

Parvati shook her head again.

"Look, you don't have to tell me what happened, because I've got a pretty good inclination of what actually did happen, just nod or shake your head because I swear if that bastard has laid a hand on you I will go and smash his face in myself," Dean said menacingly.

"Don't get yourself involved," Parvati said softly, "You'll only get hurt."

"Oh, and that's worse than you getting hurt?" Dean said hotly, "Parvati I would rather be hit a hundred times with the killing curse than stand by and watch someone get abused. You're not going back there, you're staying with me until we can contact your mother or Padma," Dean said firmly.

Parvati didn't say anything, but the look in her eyes was one of thankfulness and relief. Dean sat down next to her and she flinched a little, he shifted away from her slightly. She needed space and time.

"You're allowed to cry, Parvati, hell I would be crying if I'd been through what you've been through," Dean said softly.

Parvati sniffed softly but didn't say anything. They sat in silence for a few minutes longer before Dean spoke up.

"You should get yourself cleaned up," he said, getting up and walking over to the cupboard and pulling out a pair of pyjamas and a towel, "The bathroom's in there and there's some ointment that you can put on your bruises and I've only got size twenty-six pyjamas, so they might be a little bit baggy on you," he walked into the bathroom and put both on the toilet seat, "If you want any help don't hesitate to ask," he finished as Parvati pushed herself off the couch with difficulty. Dean moved to help her but she waved him off, flinching away from him on instinct again.

"I'll be fine," Parvati said, "You just go to bed, I'll sort myself out."

And that was Parvati's ultimate downfall, she always appeared stronger on the outside to everyone. To others it was like she had this impermeable shell that kept out all the hurt and pain, but really, the shell kept it in and as soon as she closed the door to the bathroom and was sure that she was alone, she collapsed onto the cold tiles sobbing.

* * *

**AN: Okay, so I figured out why I wasn't getting into this and it was because I hadn't planned ahead so I did and now I'm really excited to write it… like you have no idea how excited I am. *jumps up and down***

**Well I have officially been dubbed the queen of procrastination… I opened the word document to write this at 3pm and it is now 11pm… this is only 2.5k words long…. It took me eight hours to write 2.5k? that normally takes me one and a half… yes, I am the Procrastination Queen (seriously, I trekked through Wales on google maps to find the entrance to the Torchwood hub and succeeded. Does that give you any idea of how much I procrastinate?)**

**Anyway, I'd love to hear what you thought, so if you have time, leave a little comment in the review box below and if you actually liked this then add it to your alerts to get emails when I update :) **

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	5. Scream

Chapter 5  
Scream

Slipping on the pyjamas that Dean had left for her on the lid of the toilet, Parvati looked at herself in the mirror.

Her face was sunken and bruised, her cheekbones jutted out and there were splits in the skin where Theodore's fists had collided with her face and the wound on the back of her head that had been ripped open hours beforehand after Theodore had pulled her up by the head throbbed worse than ever. Still, at least she was safe, warm and clean. Although she didn't feel safe or clean, she felt more out in the open than ever now that she had come here. She had a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that Theodore would find her wherever she was and drag her back to live with him.

Despite the fact that she had spent hours underneath the shower with the faucet on full blast while she had lathered her body with soap, ignoring the sting that occurred when she washed over her cuts or the dull ache that happened when she pressed lightly on her bruises. She had cleaned out her injuries and applied some essence of dittany that Dean had in his top draw before putting some ointment on them. She still felt dirty. She felt violated and sore from all of the violence and abuse that she had suffered. No amount of water, soap or ointment could shake that from her.

She wished that she had fought when the Ministry officials had dragged her away from her house and forced her into a wedding gown with frills and walked closely behind her with their wands sticking into her back as she walked up the aisle. She would never forget the reptilian smile that was on Theodore's face that day. It was as if a boa constrictor was looking at a particularly large and juicy meal. He had squeezed her so tightly, just like a boa constrictor would, on that first night until she realised that she couldn't fight him, she could only make him annoyed. He had swallowed her feet when he had enslaved her, just like he would a house elf. He had then progressed to swallow her knees when he had decided that he could do whatever he liked with her, which included the beating and the raping whenever he felt like it, which was increasingly often. She felt as if he had just reached her middle after the incident in Diagon Alley where she had obeyed him and stayed silent about the fact that she was miserable in the relationship that she had with him when she had finally managed to break free from the coils that he had wrapped around her.

Parvati glanced at the clock on the wall opposite the shower; she had been in here for nearly an hour and a half now and despite the fact that she had come to Dean for protection and security, she was glad that he hadn't tried to pry any further into the situation than he had. She liked that he was leaving her alone with her thoughts because if he hadn't she would've felt more trapped and stressed out over the fact that he wanted to know, and she didn't want to go near any of that.

Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she turned towards the door and opened it slowly.

Dean was sitting on the other couch, his head lolling backwards as he snored lightly. Parvati didn't blame him, it was four in the morning and he had probably wanted to go to sleep a lot earlier than this.

She walked across the room back to the spare couch and lay down on it, wincing as she bumped against a few bruises. She placed her head on the soft pillow and hoped that a somewhat dreamless sleep would find her.

* * *

Dean woke to the sound of whimpering.

His first thought was that it was next-door's dog whining for food but then he realised that the sound was not coming from outside his front door, but from the spare couch.

_Shit_, Dean thought, remembering that he had company. He leapt up without allowing himself any time to wake up which made his vision cloud over and he tripped over the coffee table and stumbled to Parvati's side. She was jerking sharply at random intervals, her face gleamed with sweat and all the while she made a horrible, frightened whimpering sound.

"Parvati," he said, shaking her shoulder gently as she flinched away from something in her dreams, "Parvati," he repeated, shaking her shoulder a little more roughly than before.

Parvati's eyes flew open. They were wide as saucers and they looked terrified.

Dean's face relaxed into a smile as she lay on her back staring up at the ceiling, breathing heavily.

"Hey, you're fine, you're okay," Dean said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her head snapped sideways to look at him before pulling away abruptly, still looking like a scared child. "What were you dreaming about?"

Parvati shook her head fervently.

"Alright," Dean said, "you don't have to tell me, but at least let me make you some tea or something."

Parvati neither accepted or denied his offer so he got up, switched on the light and flicked his wand at the kettle which flew over to the sink and filled itself up.

Thoughts churned over and over in his mind about what could've possibly happened to Parvati. He knew that she had suffered some form of abuse when she was with Theodore but he had no idea how long it had gone on for, what he had done and how he had done it.

He glanced at the clock on the mantle; it was five in the morning. No wonder he felt wrecked; he'd only had a few hours of sleep.

The kettle finished boiling itself and poured the boiling hot water into the two mugs that Dean had got out moments before. He put in the teabags and waved his wand at the mugs which levitated off the table and moved slowly over to the coffee table where they sat themselves down.

"Here," Dean said, picking one up and handing it to her, "Just how you like it, black and no sugar."

Parvati accepted it with a look of thanks.

He sat down next to her, cradling his own cup of tea in his hands.

"I'd ask how you've been in the last few months but I think it's safe to assume that your life has been pretty shit," he said in a failed attempt to start a conversation.

Parvati didn't confirm or deny.

"Look, Parvati, I know you don't want to talk about it, but sometimes it can help," Dean said quietly. Parvati bit her lip and he knew that she was thinking about what had happened more than ever now. Dean sighed as she stayed silent.

"Okay," Dean said slowly, "Take your time."

"Where's Lavender?" Parvati asked suddenly and Dean could tell that she had been holding back tears.

Dean smiled, "She and Seamus moved in together a few days ago, they're really happy."

Before he knew what was happening, Parvati has burst into tears.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Dean said worriedly as she set her mug down on the table so that she could bury her face in her hands. Dean placed his mug down and attempted to comfort her, "Do you miss Lavender? I can get her to come here today if you want," Dean placed a hand on her shoulder and once again, she flinched away.

"Please, Dean, don't touch me," she sobbed, "I don't want you to touch me."

Dean withdrew his hand like he had been burned, immediately feeling horrible as Parvati sobbed into her hands.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't know," He stammered. Parvati drew in a heaving breath.

"It's funny how you don't realise how absolutely miserable your life is until you hear about people who are happy," she said glumly, trying to hold in her tears. Dean resisted the urge to take her hand in his, knowing that she would just pull away again.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dean asked softly, "You don't have to… but when you're ready, I'd like to know."

"I-I'm not ready," Parvati said, hiccoughing slightly, "But I'll tell you… It's not right of me to turn up here at one in the morning and just expect you to take me in like that."

"It's no problem really," Dean said, waving it off.

"I owe you an explanation," she said quietly, "and I'll give it to you."

Dean was not going to protest, he crossed his arms and looked into her eyes intently to show that he was listening.

Parvati bit her lip again, "I hate him," she said menacingly her voice filled with a cold, hot anger that he had never seen in her eyes before now, "He's horrible…" she stopped abruptly as more tears started to well in her eyes, "I'd better start from the beginning."

Dean nodded.

Parvati took a deep, shaky breath, "On the day that we moved into the house as soon as we were alone he threw me down on the bed and did his business," she started to cry again, "I tried to f-fight back but I couldn't. H-he was too st-strong and he had my w-wand. I tried to defy him but he just kept hitting me and p-putting the cruciatus curse on m-me until I sub-submitted to him. H-he hit me al-almost every day and did his business on top of me a-almost every night until I ran away a-and even then h-he found me. I w-was just outside London and hit me again, but I s-stunned him with his wand and got the knight bus here. Oh Dean w-what am I going to do?!"

Dean couldn't help but reach over and hug her, it made his chest hurt too much just to watch her sit there and cry. To his surprise, she didn't resist at all but turned into his chest and sobbed.

Dean held her close as her body racked with sobs. It was the first sign of weakness that she had shown since he'd seen her.

"Is that what you were dreaming about?" Dean asked softly and he felt Parvati nod into his chest. He hugged her tighter, "Don't worry, you're safe here. I won't let anyone hurt you," he reassured her.

Parvati pulled away, looking at him with eyes that held too much pain and suffering for a woman of her age to have suffered, "I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to that place."

"You're not going to," Dean said firmly, "I'm not letting you, you're staying here and we'll tell the wizenagamot and we'll have him prosecuted forever."

"You're so optimistic," Parvati sniffed, "They'll never believe us, we don't have any solid evidence."

"Oh, so you being beaten to a pulp isn't evidence enough, plus you can give them your memories," Dean suggested.

Parvati shook her head quickly again.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want them to see that," she said quickly. Dean didn't press the matter as he knew that giving over her memories would take much more courage on her part than it did to tell him what had happened to her. He didn't know what to say next, and neither did Parvati as she didn't say anything. So they just sat there curled up on the couch with tea as the sun slowly rose above the horizon.

_BANG!_

Dean jumped slightly as a single bang echoed off his front door.

_BANG!_

Dean turned his head suspiciously towards it.

_BANG!_

He saw the door cave slightly between the hinges and knew whatever was out there was trying to get in. He looked back at Parvati who looked petrified. He got up slowly, picking up his wand from the coffee table and pointing it at the door.

With a final _bang,_ the door flew off its hinges and across the room where it smashed into the opposite wall.

Dean could've peed himself when he registered who was standing there, the very person who he had planned to prosecute for unspeakable crimes; Theodore Nott. He heard Parvati's terrified scream and the shattering of a mug as she dropped her tea on the ground.

"Oh you little fucker," Theodore raged, storming over the threshold and walking towards Parvati, "You fucking adulterer! You just wait and see what I've got in store for you."

"_Stupefy,"_ Dean said, pointing his wand at Theodore who deflected the spell easily, but turned his attention away from Parvati and onto Dean.

"You!" He raged, "You fucking man-whore, trying to steal my wife away from me. I should kill you right now for trying to break up my marriage."

"It's not a marriage you have," Dean yelled, his voice ten times more courageous than he actually felt, "It's a bloody master-servant relationship! You don't treat people that way, Nott, it's out of line."

"You told him!" Theodore yelled, turning to Parvati, "You stupid bloody bitch, what is wrong with you?"

Parvati whimpered at the sight of him as Dean shot another stunner at him, he deflected it again.

"I won't let you touch her again, Nott," Dean said calmly, "If you do I will personally make sure that I kill you myself."

"Try and stop me," Theodore sneered.

"_Petrificus Totalus_," Dean tried but Theodore just kept deflecting the spells that Dean shot at him.

"Did you not make it past first year, Thomas?" Theodore sniggered as he advanced on him.

"How did you find me?" Dean said, trying to take Theodore's mind off the fight at hand.

"I asked around," he said, "Knew that she probably got the Knight Bus so I acted like a caring brother wanting to know where my sister went and the fuckwit driver pointed me right here… step aside Thomas if you know what's good for you."

"You're not taking her," Dean snarled, shooting an impediment jinx at him, "She's staying here with me so that we can get her some proper help," Dean was amazed at how calm his voice was staying despite the fact that he could've shat himself right then and there.

"Well you're going to have a fun time getting that from her… _Crucio_," he said and Dean had no time to throw up a protective charm when the curse hit him, Theodore had managed to do what he had failed to do; taking his mind of the fight and distracting him. It was like his body was being penetrated by a thousand knives. He heard Parvati's horrified scream as his vision went black. He was vaguely aware of his head hitting something hard and his consciousness slipping away into a deep chasm of nothingness.

* * *

**AN: Well this would've been up last night but we went out for dinner and I was super tired when we got back and fell asleep almost immediately. I tried not to but I couldn't keep my eyes open… anyway here it is!**

**OH and also I found out today that this ‽** **is called an interrobang. Isn't that the coolest name for punctuation **_**ever?**_** I'm so going to write a little note on the side of my exam paper if I ever have to use it. Yeah anyway.**

**I'd really like it if you could tell me what you thought in the box below because it would really make my day. Thanks so much!**

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	6. Smooth Criminal

**Warning: this chapter contains considerably darker themes than the rest of the story and is rated 'M'. Read at your own risk.**

* * *

Chapter 6  
Smooth Criminal

Parvati watched Theodore's stunning spell hit Dean square in the chest as he fell. She felt an unearthly scream issue from her mouth as she heard the sickening crack of Dean's head hitting the floorboards.

She couldn't move, she couldn't make a sound as she just stared at Dean's motionless body as rough hands grabbed her around the waist. She felt the urge to scream but all that came out was a strangled cry as Theodore turned on the spot, swinging her around with him. Nothing happened.

He cursed wildly and dragged Parvati over to Dean's fireplace. She was still numb and couldn't tear her eyes away from Dean.

"Stupid bastard doesn't even have floo powder!" Theodore growled, banging his fist down on the mantelpiece.

It was the smashing of the glass in the frame of the picture that brought Parvati back to her senses. Theodore grabbed her again, slung her over his shoulder and began walking towards the door. She opened her mouth and found that she could scream again. She let out a long, high pitched scream, hoping that someone would hear and come out to see her being kidnapped. She kicked, clawed and struggled against Theodore's grip but he was too strong. She screamed again, this one louder than before.

"Don't bother, bitch," Theodore muttered menacingly as they walked outside, "I've put silencing charms on everyone's doors."

Parvati stopped screaming abruptly as Theodore jabbed her in the side with something long and hard; his wand.

"If you really wanted to stop me, you would've snapped it and thrown it in the Thames you stupid bloody idiot," he said, "You're hopeless… but I've enjoyed playing your little game."

He muttered a few words and seconds later set off in the opposite direction.

"Let me go, Nott," Parvati said as firmly as she could, still clawing at his back and kicking at his torso, "let me go or I swear I'll kill you."

Theodore laughed, "Ooh now I'm scared. I'm being threatened by a helpless girl who's slung over my shoulder with no weapon, I'm positively shitting myself."

"Don't patronise me," she said angrily as they turned down an alleyway, "I'm going to have you prosecuted."

"Oh, no I don't think that's going to happen," Theodore said, walking carefully down it and stopping between a piece of newspaper and corrugated iron, "You see, when I told you that I had enjoyed playing your little game I implied that it had finished, which it has… and now that I've played your game, it's only fair that you play mine."

He turned on the spot and disapparated. Parvati felt the familiar squeezing sensation of side along apparition. Seconds later, instead of appearing outside of their house, he appeared in a musty dank room; Parvati could barely see her own hands in front of her face. She heard Theodore light his wand beside her which threw the room into an eerie sort of light.

Parvati almost wished that he hadn't lit his wand.

"What is this place?" Parvati said, trying to sound confident but only succeeding in sounding like she needed the loo.

"This is the place where my game takes place isn't it?" Theodore said, throwing her down on the ground and knocking the wind out of her. As she struggled for breath, he flicked his wand at her and manacles appeared around her wrists and bound themselves to a ring on the wall, "And my game lasts for a lot longer than yours did Parvati, a lot longer… possibly even forever."

She could see his smile illuminated in the half light, making him look paedophilic and creepy as he advanced on her, his wand outstretched and a tent forming in the front of his pants.

"Get away from me," she tried but Theodore only laughed and flicked his wand again, vanishing her clothes. She shrieked in mortification and drew her legs up to her chest to try and preserve some of her dignity. Theodore moaned slightly at the sight of her vulnerable body exposed before him and started to unbutton his trousers. Parvati whimpered slightly and tried to shrink back into the wall, which proved hard when her hands were bound above her head.

"And Parvati," he said as he pulled his pants down and his erection sprang free, "my game is much more fun, for me anyway."

He pulled off his shirt and singlet until he was fully naked and standing over her, his wand still in his hand.

"Please," Parvati begged as he gave her a quick dose of the cruciatus curse, "please don't."

"But why not?" he asked mockingly, "It's fun."

"You bastard," Parvati said, fighting to keep tears from falling down her face.

"Thank you," Theodore said, pointing his wand carefully into her face, "_Crucio_."

The pain was worse than before when he had just left it on for a few seconds. She felt like she was being dipped in fire and cut open with knives on her already tender flesh. The pain that she was suffering now was nothing compared to what she had suffered before. She could hear someone laughing over the piercing screams that were sounding in her head as every bad memory that she'd ever had came back to haunt her. That was when she realised, they were her own screams that were issuing inside her head, except that they weren't inside her head. They were real, she was actually screaming and Theodore was actually laughing.

Suddenly, the pain faded away and she relaxed immediately, her body still tingling from where the white hot needles had pricked her.

"That was fun now, wasn't it Parvati?" Theodore said, "but it's about to get more fun."

With that, he put his wand down and lowered himself on top of her. She felt his cock touch her entrance and thrust inside eagerly. She arched her back and moaned slightly, she couldn't help it. He fondled her breasts as he thrust in and out with a steady rhythm, each time groaning with pleasure. She felt her hips buck against him and he stopped suddenly, looking down at her with disgust.  
"You're enjoying this are you?" he growled before ramming his fist into her gut, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped for breath, but it wouldn't come, he had lowered himself back on top of her and was smothering her, making it nearly impossible to draw breath, but somehow, she managed to feeling like she was being attacked by a Boa constrictor every time she drew breath "This should teach you a lesson, you filthy whore," he growled Parvati felt tears start to roll down her cheeks as his thrusts became faster and it started to hurt. She didn't want this. She never had. She knew that sex was soemthing that you were supposed to have with the person that you loved the most in the world and that it was supposed to be enjoyable and meaningful and this was as far from it as you could get. She was powerless against him. There was nothing she could do to stop it. Her legs were bound as were her wrists and she hadn't seen her wand in god knows how long.

"Stop," she gasped and Theodore slapped her hard across the face. Her head snapped sideways and she tasted blood in her mouth. She cried out in pain only to receive another blow to the head which made her feel ill and dizzy. Pain seared through every fibre of her being and she wished that it would all stop. That all the pain and all of the hurt that she had suffered throughout the last six months would just go away and she would become numb. She didn't want to go on like this, she wanted to leave this world and never return. She could tell that Theodore was close to the edge as he grunted and groaned, each time making his thrusts rougher and harder until the rhythm of his pelvis against hers made her body move around on the cold stone floor.

She felt a warm sensation inside her and Theodore came with a groan of ecstasy He pulled out slowly and stood up, vanishing the come off his now soft cock with his wand and staring down at Parvati who was desperately trying to stop her lip from bleeding.

"Are you done yet?" she said trying to glare at him and stay strong but failing miserably.

"No," Theodore said as he re-dressed himself.

"What more can you do to me you bastard?" she said, her voice breaking on the word bastard, "You won't break me."

"Oh but I can certainly try," Theodore said and drove his foot into her stomach as hard as he possibly could. She doubled over, still naked and curled her knees up to her chest as the wind was knocked out of her again. She felt more blows descending on her; to her face, back, legs arms, everywhere that he could reach he kicked, punched, slapped or kneed. All Parvati could do was curl up in a ball and wish that one of the blows would kill her.

They didn't because she was very much alive when Theodore stopped kicking and punching her. She could feel bruises rising all over her body and pain throbbed through every vein in her body as she heard Theodore's footsteps moving away from her.

She raised her head slightly as a blinding light was released into the dark space and shielded her eyes from it.

"Where are you going?" she croaked as she made out a silhouette of Theodore climbing a ladder.

"Like I said," Theodore said, jumping up out of the hole and shielding some light from her eyes so that all she could see was his face, "my game could probably last forever."

And with that, he slammed the door, leaving the darkness pressing in on Parvati's mind.

~0~

The only thing that Dean was aware of was the fact that the back of his head hurt, a lot.

"What the hell?" he murmured as he opened his eyes blearily and looked around the room. It looked like there had been a radical party there last night and Dean felt like he had just woken up with a massive hangover. But however hard he had hit his head last night, he still remembered why his apartment was in this state and why he was so immediately bogged down with worry.

"Fuck," he whispered to himself, "Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck."

He jumped to his feet, making his head spin and staggered towards the door, scooping his wand up off the ground as he went. The door in question however, was still half way across his house and he had wondered how the hell that the people living at number five didn't notice that he had no door when their children went to school that morning. He put a hand to the back of his head and felt a large lump and a bruise forming there, no blood which wasn't always necessarily a good sign but it would have to do for now.

He glanced at the clock on his mantelpiece. Twelve o'clock. Almost seven hours since he had the fight with Theodore, seven hours that Parvati had been away from him for.

Waving his wand at the door, he levitated it back over to its frame and repaired it before proceeding to cast extra protective enchantments on it. He then sent a patronus into work telling Kingsley that he had found a case of his own to follow up and that he wouldn't be in today.

Grabbing his coat, wand and both muggle and wizard money, he hurried out of the apartment.

The only problem now was where to start. Dean was an auror but he had no experience in tracking people.

He sighed and started to walk towards the apparition alleyway. He supposed the best place to start would be to find out where Theodore Nott lived. Surely if he wasn't in the phone book, he would have to be registered in the Wizarding Household Department Building.

Dean reached the apparition safe point and turned on the spot, focussing on the lobby of the place that he wanted to go.

Seconds later he appeared with a pop in the middle of the room and continued walking as if he had not just had the air squeezed out of him by the process of Apparition.

"Hello," he said to the lady behind the counter who didn't look up from cleaning her nails, "Dean Thomas, Auror office," he flashed his identification at her, "I'm looking for the Nott residence."

"Just a moment," she said in a flat tone. Getting up out of her seat with a groan and making her way over to the huge filing cabinets at the back of the room. Using her wand, she located the N section and then proceeded to take ten minutes longer to find the file labelled Nott.

"What's the code?" she asked.

"Sorry?" Dean said, perplexed.

"The code to access Mr and Mrs Nott's records," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. _Of course_, Dean thought bitterly, _of course there's a bloody code_.

"I'm from the Auror office, I can override that," Dean tried, knowing that it would fail.

"Sorry sir, but we can't let you access their records without the code, I suggest you come back with it," she said, sitting back down and going back to cleaning her nails.

Dean swore under his breath, how the hell was he going to find her now? He had no address, no direction, no point of reference. He was left with essentially nothing.

The way Dean saw it, there were two options. Option one was to wonder around until he found her by chance, and option two was call in the aurors to help, which, despite being a sensible idea, would be a lot more trouble than it seemed and Dean didn't want to get on Kingsley's bad side.

Despite these thoughts, Dean found himself pushing in front of a young man in the floo powder line and shouting "Auror office, ministry of magic," as he stood in the green flames.

He felt himself be sucked away through the swirling vortex of fireplaces, seriously doubting that he could get anyone to believe him.

~0~

Parvati didn't know how long she had been there, only that it had been more than a few days. She knew because she could hear footsteps above her all day and nothing all night. She was bound by her hands to the wall and completely naked, (Theodore hadn't had the decency to redress her) and she was scared beyond belief.

It was so dark. It pressed in around her, weighing on her consciousness as all of her worst memories loomed in around her.

She was hungry and thirsty. Theodore hadn't been down there since he had left her there about three days ago. Three whole days; they said that you could last two weeks without food but only three days without water. Parvati knew that's what Theodore wanted; her off his hands. Her mouth was dry and parched and she knew that if she didn't get water by the end of the day when Theodore's footsteps stopped thumping overhead, that she would die.

She had accepted her fate. She had accepted it as soon as Theodore had told her that the game that he was playing would go on forever. She would not die of old age with a loving husband and Grandchildren, but she would die here in a dingy cellar without any food and water; starved to death by a man who dared call himself her husband.

She was so weak, so sore, she didn't want to think about what she looked like but she knew that she had dropped a fair amount of weight as her body tried to preserve what it could.

She didn't want to close her eyes, but she hadn't in three days and it was now becoming an effort to blink. Surely it would be so much easier just to close them for good, she was going to die anyway.

It was impossible to lie down, not with her hands tied above her head so she just let her head loll against her arm and her eyes shut, hopefully for the last time.

A blinding light forced its way through her eye lids and Parvati's immediate thought was that death had come a bit sooner than she had anticipated and how different it was to what she thought it would be like. She had pictured a long dark tunnel that she would walk along until she reached the end but maybe this was what dying was like, just blinding whiteness and someone endlessly calling her name…

~0~

She looked like death.

It had taken him three whole days with a full auror team to finally find Theodore Nott's place of residence and demand to see Parvati. When he had denied them, they had forced their way in and searched the house. It had been Dean that had found the trapdoor underneath the living room carpet and knew immediately where the bastard had been keeping her.

"Parvati," he said, slapping her face softly, "Parvati can you hear me?" he lit his wand and forced one of her eyelids open and shone the light into her eye. "Her pupils are dilating," he called, "she's still alive, someone get the healers here quickly, and get the bastard arse out of the house and have him carted to Azkaban."

He heard a scrabble for the ladder as three of the eight Aurors that were accompanying him on this mission went to carry out his orders.

One of Dean's fellow Aurors approached her, shining his wand in her face too.

"Bloody hell," he whispered, "She looks like she's dead already."

The light from his wand threw her waxen and bruised skin into sharper relief, making her seem vulnerable.

"How do you know her?" the auror asked, Dean didn't know his name.

"We went to School together," Dean said, tapping the chains with his wand so that they fell off Parvati's arms and she collapsed limply sideways into his arms, "She and I were pretty good friends."

The young auror nodded as Dean picked Parvati up and started to carry her towards the ladder of the staircase, vowing to himself that he would never let that bastard near her again.

**AN: It's 3am**

**Why am I not tired?**

**This is weird…. Anyway, sorry for the fact that this was really vague. I was going to write it earlier but I got sidetracked with my NaNoWriMo novel which you can read at the end of November on both my fictionpress account and my wattpad account, links are on my profile.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and as always if you have the time, I'd love it if you could leave me a review telling me what you liked/didn't like because that would be something that I'd love to wake up to. **

**Anyway, to stop myself from waking up at like twelve tomorrow I'm going to bed now so that I can get some decent studying done because EXAMS THIS WEEK… fun!**

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	7. If Everyone Cared

Chapter 7  
If Everyone Cared

Dean waited with his hands clasped together outside the doors to the Action and Emergency Room of St Mungo's. As soon as they had arrived at A&E, Parvati had been whisked away from him to be treated and he hadn't seen her since. That had been over two hours ago. At first he had busied himself with contacting her family, which had been difficult in itself because he didn't have the faintest idea where any of them lived and had to get the young auror to send a patronus to Lavender so that she could tell him their address. That had been a mistake. Lavender and Seamus had rushed white faced into the waiting room, demanding answers of him. It took him a good fifteen minutes to calm her down enough to get the address out of her and once he had, she refused to leave the waiting room, despite how many times he told Seamus and Lavender that they should go home and he would call them as soon as he knew what was going on, but they both insisted on staying and Dean was too tired by this point to argue with them.

He had managed to contact Parvati's sister Padma and her husband Terry but hadn't been able to get in touch with either of her parents as they lived overseas. Padma had turned a nasty shade of white and hurried away from the fire, calling for Terry. Dean had assumed that she was coming to join them and had pulled his head out of the fire but he was still waiting for them to arrive and he was starting to worry about that and the fact that he had heard nothing from the Healers about Parvati's situation. No sooner had he started to worry, the doors to the waiting room flew open and Padma rushed in looking petrified, Terry followed suit with a small child in his arms. Dean stood up as Padma reached him, demanding answers before he had even said hello.

"Where is she," Padma said breathlessly, "What happened, is she going to be okay?"

Dean could only shrug and say, "I don't know."

Padma collapsed into one of the few vacant chairs in the room, tears welling in her eyes, eyes that Dean now noticed as being identical to Parvati's. Dean couldn't help but feel sorry for her as he resumed his position of sitting there, blindly hoping for news. He hated being the bringer of bad news. He'd had to do it a few times as an auror and had felt just as bad as the killer would've felt if they weren't raging psychopaths. His mind lingered fleetingly on the thought that maybe the trainee healer that they had sent to deliver the news (because they always sent the trainees, as Dean knew only too well) had chickened out and left them in the dark. He pushed that thought aside quickly, he had to think positively so that Parvati would be okay. He couldn't fathom what the sick bastard had done to her, but she had been alive when he had last seen her and he hoped that it would be enough to pull her through.

"Dean," he heard Padma whisper from his right, "How did you find out about this?"

"I'm an auror," Dean responded softly, "I know these things."

Padma seemed to know that he was lying, "You were there, weren't you?" she said. Dean, even though he knew that she would only pepper him with more questions, nodded.

"Then what happened?" she said through gritted teeth, "If you're an auror and you were there you'd better bloody tell me because my twin sister could be dying right now."

"Oh don't be so dramatic," A healer said, walking out of the doors that lead to A&E and stripping off her gloves. Dean, Lavender and Padma jumped to their feet as she walked towards them, "You're Miss Patil's family, I presume?" she said, gesturing to Seamus, Terry, Lavender and Padma.

"No," Seamus said, "We're friends," he gestured to himself and Lavender, "They're family," he pointed to Terry, Padma and the baby in Terry's arms. The healer nodded at them.

"Alright, well, it's good news, she's going to be okay," The healer said and everyone let out a huge sigh of relief. "but," she said and everyone's attention snapped off being relieved that she was going to live and back to the healer, "We've extracted her memories and-" the healer didn't manage to get anything else out as Padma stood up in a rage.

"You took her memories without her permission?" she hissed, "Without anyone in her family's permission even."

"Miss Patil –" the healer tried but Padma cut her off, becoming more and more enraged by the second.

"That's Mrs Boot to you," she said, "I'm married.

"I'm sorry, but I must ask you –"

"Must ask me to what?" Padma shouted, "Calm down? No, I will not calm down, that is a direct invasion of my sister's privacy and for you to just go in and grab her memories when she's most vulnerable is just sick. It's just bloody sick!" she shrieked, her voice breaking on the last word.

"Padma, stop," Terry said as the baby in his arms started to stir and whimper slightly at the loud noises, "You're upsetting Isaac."

Padma collapsed back into her chair, shaking with sobs as the healer looked baffled as to what to do. Lavender walked over and sat down beside Padma, placing her hand on Padma's arm comfortingly. Dean had never known that they were friends.

"Come and talk to us elsewhere," Dean said firmly, gesturing to Terry and Seamus. She nodded and the three of them walked across the room.

"So, what about the memories?" Dean asked, "Is there something wrong with them?"

"No," the healer said in hushed tones, glancing fearfully over at Padma and Lavender, "But she's not going to be right in the head after all she's suffered. We're setting her up with a psychologist right now. It's going to be a long recovery process."

Dean nodded curtly, feeling quite sick. Terry bit his lip and glanced over at his wife and Seamus' expression remained blank.

"When can we see her?" Dean asked.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Thomas, but we only allow family in after visiting hours, which only classifies as Mr and Mrs Boot."

"But I brought her in!" Dean said, outraged, "She came to me when she escaped his place before but the bastard broke in and took her back. Don't you dare tell me that I can't see her until visiting hours!"

"I'm sorry, Mr Thomas, but it's hospital policy. Unless you're family we cannot allow you to visit patients after visiting hours."

"Bullshit," Dean said angrily and Terry shot him a meaningful look as he put his hands over the baby's ears, "Sorry," he said briefly before rousing back on the Healer, "What if they give me permission?" he asked, knowing that if she was a trainee he would be able to bend her so that he could go and see Parvati.

The healer shook her head and Dean swore under his breath. The healer turned to Terry, "We've moved her up into Intensive Care, if you want to go and see her."

Terry nodded as the Healer turned away and walked back into A&E. Dean had to admit, she had been stronger than most trainees, but he did notice that her shoulders hunched and started as soon as she was through the doors. Dean turned back to face Padma and Terry, feeling slightly guilty.

"We'll let you know how she is," Terry said kindly, seeing how annoyed Dean was at not being able to see her, "You three should go home and get some rest, It's almost eleven. Seamus and Lavender looked at each other and nodded but Dean shook his head, "I'll wait outside ICU if I have to, I'm not going home until I've seen with my own two eyes that she is okay."

Padma and Terry nodded, not at all perturbed by the fact that even though it was a family situation, that Dean wanted to stay. Perhaps it was to do with him being the one to find her. He didn't know.

With that, Padma and Terry walked off to the elevator and disappeared inside it. Dean turned to Lavender and Seamus, "He's right, you two should get some rest. I'll let you know if anything happens."

Lavender, who had looked like she was going to fall asleep at any moment for the past few hours nodded sleepily and Seamus held out a hand for Dean to shake.

"When you've got the time, mate," Seamus said, "There's something that me and Lav want to tell you."

"I've got nothing but time," Dean said, thinking of the ten hour wait he had before visiting hours opened again.

"My mistake," Seamus said, "An appropriate time," and with that, Seamus and Lavender disapparated, leaving Dean alone in a crowded room.

* * *

Parvati was vaguely aware of a beeping sound and hushed voices from above her. The surface that she was lying on was soft and she felt comfortably warm but at the same time, she was nowhere near being comfortable. She could feel every cut and every bruise, the pain magnified by a hundred times as she stirred slightly. She heard the whispering above her increased and it suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know where she was.

She forced her eyes to open slowly and saw nothing but white. _Wow, maybe I really am dead_. She thought as she narrowed her eyes to slits as the light seeped into them and her vision adjusted to what was around her. That was when she realised that there was not just white, but patches of black too. There were also lots of people and beds around her. She heard her name called and then searing pain as she was engulfed in something blue and white. She shut her eyes again immediately.

"Don't smother her!" she heard a voice say and the weight that was surely about to crush her disappeared with a quick apology. Maybe she wasn't in heaven, maybe she was in some kind of waiting room.

"Parvati," she heard someone say and then felt pressure on her hand as someone took it gently, "If you can hear me, squeeze my hand."

But Parvati didn't want to move, she didn't want to squeeze the owner of the voice's hand, even though there was something familiar about it.

"Please Parvati," the voice said again, "Please squeeze my hand."

Parvati felt something wet splash onto her hand and knew that the owner of the voice was crying.

"Parvati it's me, Padma."

An explosion of emotions erupted in Parvati's brain; Padma, her twin sister who she hadn't seen in eight months, Padma who she had thought about every day, Padma who she had missed more than her own freedom. Her eyes flew open again, the light blinding her again but this time she saw Padma sitting beside her with Terry and Isaac as well. Tears sprung to her eyes as she saw them sitting around her looking relieved.

"Parvati," Padma said, smiling through tears at her twin sister, "Oh god, I was so scared."

Parvati smiled slightly, trying to ignore the pain in her face as she did so. She was not dead, she knew that for a fact because Parvati wasn't dumb, nor was she stupid and she knew that there were no hospitals in heaven because nobody was hurt.

Parvati didn't have to ask what happened, because she remembered it all. Every single tiny detail, she only hoped that she wouldn't have to tell Padma.

She saw Terry stand up and place Isaac down on the bed beside her. The one year old grinned a toothy smile at her as she looked down at him, "Hello Isaac," she said, her voice croaky and her throat on fire. He grinned and clapped his hands happily. She wished that she could go back to being that innocent.

"Parvati, what happened?" Padma asked, Dean didn't tell us and the Healers wouldn't either."

Terry hit Padma softly on the arm, "Don't pepper her with questions." He said.

Just the small hit rang alarm bells in Parvati's head. She kept seeing the back of Terry's hand hitting her sister's arm replayed time and time again in slow motion. She suddenly felt vulnerable and scared, despite the fact that there were nearly twenty other people in the room. She didn't care how many people were there, she had to get out. She sat up, ignoring the pain that it caused and started pulling out the tubes that attached her to the machines. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and attempted to stand but was met by a sudden onset of dizziness, combined with the pain that made her fall to the ground. She couldn't breathe, every atom of her existence felt like it was about to explode and all she could hear was yelling and a long, continuous beep.

She felt strong arms clasp themselves around her and lift her up, placing her back onto the bed. She heard spells being muttered and felt the tubes being inserted back into her body. She tried to struggle but knew it was useless, she would never get far.

She saw a Healer conversing with Terry and Padma to her left.

"-What happened to make her do that?" the healer was asking.

"I don't know," Padma said tearfully, "I asked her what had happened and then Terry told me not to pepper her with questions."

The healer turned to Terry, "How did you say that to her," she asked sharply.

"I just hit her on the arm and told her not to," he shrugged.

"That's why," the healer said, "It's a trigger, if she sees anything like that she'll go nuts."

"Why?" Padma asked.

"Come with me," the healer said, walking off and leaving Parvati alone, in a crowded room.

* * *

By the time that Dean finally got into ICU to see Parvati, she was sleeping. He had been told by Terry and Padma that she had woken up at about three in the morning only to be spooked by him nudging her and try to run off. It was then that he had been called to watch her memories, as he was the one with the most authority to get Theodore prosecuted in the building.

Even though he thought it sick and an Invasion of privacy to watch those memories without Parvati's permission, he had. And what he had seen made him want to throw up. The way that he had treated her, the pain that he had caused her and the language that he had used while talking to her was enough to make him wish that Theodore was standing in front him with his hands tied, helpless, while Dean performed the killing curse.

It was then that Terry understood that the small hit that he had given Padma, while not meant to inflict harm on her; it was enough to trigger fear in Parvati.

As he looked down at her seemingly lifeless body, all battered and bruised, he couldn't help feeling like the inner pain that she was experiencing was so much worse and he couldn't help but think that if everyone cared, they wouldn't be in this mess at all.

* * *

**AN: Wow, I swear I could write a book on procrastination. **

**I think I fell asleep about six times while writing this, not that I'm bored of it or anything, but the fact that I am suffering from really severe sleep deprivation. We've got new neighbours and they literally have parties every night with no consideration for anyone on the street and they blast the music, get drunk and climb into my backgarden and bang on the windows until someone calls the police. So basically I haven't slept properly in three days because I keep getting woken up by drunk people bashing on my windows. **

**Also! I was so pleased that I could sleep because I saw Paranormal Activity 4 and it sucked. I was screaming so much in the theatre because I'm a massive wimp but it was more shock than actual fright. It also made no sense at all. Waste of thirteen dollars.**

**I hope your week has been better than mine!**

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	8. Fix You

Chapter 8  
Fix You

It took weeks for Parvati to finally be moved out of Intensive Care. The injuries that she had suffered had been extensive and needed more time than was necessary to heal than most magical injuries.

Dean had had to fight to keep his face void of disgust when the healers told him, Terry and Padma what exactly had happened. She had six broken ribs that had punctured her lung in multiple spots, a fractured arm and broken leg and cuts all over her body from where he had hit her both with his fists and with all manner of nasty spells that Dean didn't even want to fathom. The healers told him that it was a miracle that she was still alive. They had told him that one more day and she would've been dead.

Dean had only left Parvati's bedside when visiting hours were over and he was booted out by unwilling healers. He knew that they could see that he cared more about her than he did about his sleep or even their bloody rules. He always put up a fight when they asked him to leave, but eventually after much begging, yelling and pleading he apparated back to his flat for a restless nights' sleep and was back at the door to Parvati's ward by eight o'clock the next morning, waiting for visiting hours to start again.

"I've never seen anyone so dedicated to a person," Padma said softly as she and Dean sat around Parvati's bed, watching her sleep.

Dean shrugged, "I just want to see her get better."

Padma smiled at him, "Me too," she said, taking his hand. Dean could only smile back at her. He admired her dedication as well. She and Terry lived in Bristol and had come all the way down to London and had remained there. Padma had stated her firm intent over and over to stay there until Parvati was well enough to leave the hospital. Dean had opened up his home to them so that they could have somewhere to stay, but Padma didn't want to leave Parvati alone in the hospital at night, so Terry, Padma and Isaac remained permanently at St Mungos.

Parvati was rarely awake and when she was she was so loaded up on painkillers and anti-depressants that she was very hard to talk to most of the time. Dean didn't mind though, her being awake and trying to communicate was fine with him. It showed him that she was recovering.

Mostly, he and Padma sat there in silence while Terry taught Isaac to walk and talk on the floor beside them, but today seemed like an exception as Padma seemed especially chatty.

"Do you like being an auror?" she asked him completely out of the blue. Dean looked up, pleasantly surprised that she was talking to him for once.

"Sometimes," Dean shrugged. Padma looked at him inquisitively, as though she was silently willing him to go on. Dean relented with a sigh. "I like it when nothing serious happens, when it's just creating a cover story for something that some wizard has done which threatens to expose us, but I hate it when things like this happen." He gestured to Parvati who had fallen asleep about half an hour ago. Padma nodded sadly.

"It can't be easy."

Dean shook his head, his eyes still glued to Parvati, "It's not."

He glanced at Padma to see tears forming in her chocolate brown eyes and couldn't help but feel sorry for her. After all, it was her twin sister that this had happened to, not his. It was then that he realised that even though he loved his three sisters with all his heart, he had never gone to any kind of lengths to be with them when they were in danger, he just assumed that they could take care of it themselves and it was only now that he saw what proper sibling love was, being there even if nobody else is and Dean saw that in Padma. Parvati was extremely lucky to have her.

"Mr. Thomas?" A voice jerked Dean out of his thoughts.

Dean turned to face the speaker, "That's me," he said.

"We have reason to believe that you may have information about the rescue of Parvati Sukhvinder Patil?" The speaker, who had turned out to be an old man with wispy white hair said.

"You assume correctly," Dean said coolly.

"Then you won't mind if we borrow you for a few minutes, just to get some details. Is that okay with you?"

Dean glanced at Padma and Parvati and gave a small sigh, "Yeah, that's fine." Dean said, getting to his feet slowly. The man with the white hair looked considerably shocked that Dean had agreed to talking to them so easily.

Dean followed the white haired man out of the room and into the corridor where there were three healers standing with notepads, "What do you need to know?" he asked. The white haired man gestured to a young, blonde healer to ask him the first question.

"Firstly, we're doing research on how Parvati Patil managed to survive for three days with no food, no water and several broken bones without getting a muggle disease known as gangrene," she said. Dean nodded slightly, too tired to care what they were asking him. The second healer, a brunette in about her mid-forties, stepped forward and said.

"What position was Miss Patil in when you discovered her?" she asked.

Dean fought to keep the tiredness from clouding his brain as he tried to form a coherent answer, "I don't know…" he said uncertainly, "she was sort of tied up by her wrists and slumped against the wall." He attempted to demonstrate how Parvati had been seated when they had found her.

"Well," said the blonde healer, "That solves the punctured lung problem. Her seating position and the fact that she was hunched over compressed the hole in the lung, which is great because if that hadn't been the case she would be in a lot more pain right now, or possibly even dead." The other healers nodded in agreement and everyone started scribbling down notes on their notepads.

Dean, who normally would've pressed the matter, couldn't have cared less what they were going to ask him next or what they were writing down on their notepads.

"Is that it?" he asked.

"No," the grey haired man said, stopping Dean in his tracks as he turned to go back into the ward, "We would also like to know when it is possible to go ahead with the case of prosecuting Theodore Nott?"

Dean shrugged again, "That's not my decision, I'm just a friend. You'll have to talk to Padma and Terry concerning that kind of stuff."

The grey haired man nodded in understanding, "Stay here," he told Dean, "There's still some more questions we need to ask you."

Dean watched him go back into Parvati's ward, presumably to get Padma. He wished that he could be the one to tell them to go and chuck the bastard in jail straight away, but unfortunately everyone got equal treatment under the law and everyone got a fair trial before being thrown to the dementors. Dean didn't like that idea too much right now. He had seen the significance of it before, but when something like this was involved he wished that it was revoked. Some people didn't deserve equal treatment under the law.

The grey haired man returned seconds later with Padma at his side. She didn't look happy at all.

"Mrs Boot," the grey haired man said, "We have compiled enough evidence against Theodore Nott to be able to convict him in a fair trial in front of the Wizenagamot, we would also like to use Parvati's memories, is that okay with you?"

Padma hesitated and Dean could see that she was completely split. She didn't want to say yes because that would be invading her sister's privacy and she didn't want to say no because that would give Theodore a greater chance of getting off.

"Yes, that sounds perfectly reasonable," Padma said hesitantly, "but on one condition." The grey haired man nodded, telling her to go on, "That as soon as this court case is over, you destroy them. Parvati should never find out."

"That sounds reasonable too," said the grey haired man, "We will inform you when we have a set date for the case. You both may be required to attend."

"Alright," Dean said, having had enough of talking about court cases and prosecutions.

The healers thanked them both and walked away. The grey haired man lingered for a second longer but with a wave and a wink he turned and walked away too.

Padma and Dean glanced at each other. This was not going to be easy.

* * *

Parvati found it increasingly hard to stay awake for long periods of time.

She knew that Padma and/or Terry was always there beside her, but sometimes when she had opened her eyes, Dean was there and sometimes he wasn't. She sometimes thought that it was her mind playing tricks on her.

Parvati's eyes flickered open, her eyelids heavy from exhaustion and looked up at Dean and Padma who were sitting at the end of the bed. She could just make out their conversation.

"Dean , I really can't wait any longer, Terry's really upset and we know that Parvati will pull through, I need to go and be with him."

"But then she'll be alone at night," Dean protested, "Part of the reason that I actually go home is that I know that you're here with her."

"She'll be fine Dean, she sleeps most of the time anyway." Padma said and Dean fell silent. She saw him bite his lips slightly and relent.

"You're probably right," he said with a shake of his head, "I'll just hide under the bed or something when visiting hours are up."

Padma laughed, "That's the spirit."

And with that, Parvati watched her sister disapparate from their midst. She was shocked and confused; Padma had told her that she would never leave no matter what. She saw Dean's eyes flicker back down to her and see that she was awake. She saw his stony expression break and be replaced by a smile filled with warmth.

He got up and moved to the chair beside her bed, taking her hand in his.

"Hey," he said softly, his face filled with happiness, "How are you feeling?"

"Sore," Parvati managed to reply and saw a hint of grimness behind the smile, "and tired."

"That will go away eventually," Dean reassured her, and then seeing her attention flick back to the spot where Padma had just disapparated, he said, "Terry's mother has just died, they've gone over to Wales to be with the family, they'll be back as soon as they can. They promised me."

A ghost of a smile appeared on Parvati's face, "You and your promises."

Dean laughed, "Me and my promises." He agreed.

"Dean," Parvati mumbled as she started to get drowsy again.

"Yeah," Dean said.

"Do you think you could get them to take me off the sleeping medication?" she mumbled as she slipped back into unconsciousness, "All it does is make it an effort for me to open my eyes."

"Sure," Dean said with a smile as her eyes fluttered shut and her breathing became steady. As he watched her lying there, a malnourished, beaten version of her former self he felt so many different emotions: Hate, anger, sadness, despair but most of all love. He had never loved her more than he did now. It was only when he had come so close to losing her had he finally realised that he was still harbouring feelings for her.

He released her hand, and called for a healer, requesting that she be taken off sleeping medication.

* * *

After much yelling, pleasing and demanding, Dean finally got what he wanted, to stay overnight in the hospital with her.

He had played the 'she shouldn't be alone' card and the healers hadn't been able to put up a good fight to refuse him since then.

He didn't know how Terry and Padma did this time after time, sleeping on little camp beds alongside Parvati's. Dean was tired, but he couldn't sleep. What if something happened to Parvati and he wasn't there to help her or call a healer? What if, despite all odds, Theodore managed to escape and take her away again? Dean shook his head, he was just being stupid and scaring himself silly with these thoughts, but still he found it impossible to sleep.

He found himself sitting in the chair beside the bed, watching Parvati sleep. She flinched every now and again but otherwise nothing happened until one in the morning. Dean had just been dropping off, his head lolling onto his chest when he heard her whimper.

His eyes flew open and encased her hand in his own again as she began to write, whimpering louder and louder until they weren't whimpers at all, they were full on yells and screams of pain and terror.

He grabbed her shoulders and shook them, hoping to wake her up, but all that did was make her yell and scream more.

Frantically, he leant over and pressed the button which summoned the Healers and went back to trying to subdue her. He tried pinning her down so that she wouldn't rip any of her tubes out but she just shrieked and he tried yelling her name but she didn't wake. She seemed to be stuck in her sleep.

Dean was confused as to why this was happening, Padma had never mentioned anything about this at all.

The lights clicked on and the healers burst in looking concerned, "What's happened?"

"She's having a nightmare?" Dean said, gesturing to Parvati, "I'm sure of it."

The healers sprang directly into action, checking her tubes and bags of liquid and located the source of the problem pretty much straight away.

"She's been taken off the sleeping potion," one of the healers said, "It has the ability to eradicate nightmares as well, that's why this has never happened before. We'll just put her back on it and she'll be fine."

Dean nodded frantically, wondering if she hadn't asked him to do that, they wouldn't be in this situation now.

The healers fixed Parvati and left. Dean sat down by her bed again, taking her hand and made a vow, a promise, an unbreakable commitment to Parvati.

"I promise that someday, somehow, I will fix you."

* * *

**AN: I'm sorry for the crappinesss. This was a little rushed cause I kind of have to go to a party in five minutes so this will be short.**

**If you like, you can leave me a review telling me what is good/not good about the story :)**

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	9. Safe and Sound

Chapter 9  
Safe and Sound

It seemed like years before Parvati had finally shown enough signs of recovering to be discharged from the hospital entirely.

Months of psychiatric treatment and physiotherapy for her to be mostly back to normal. She still wasn't quite right though. Dean was the only one that could see it. She lacked the spark that she had had before this whole ordeal had occurred. Dean could hardly blame her after all she had been through, who wouldn't be slightly off? But he couldn't help but miss that old Parvati.

"Are you sure she's alright to go?" Dean asked one of the healers who was checking over Parvati's paperwork at the front desk.

"Positive," the healer nodded, "The psychiatrist has given her the all clear to leave the hospital and she's demonstrated perfectly that she has recovered from all physical injuries."

Dean nodded, still feeling slightly unsure about what would happen when they left the hospital. What would he do if her nightmares came back and he wasn't able to wake her? What would he do if something went wrong with one of her healed injuries and Dean accidentally landed her back in the hospital? He wasn't even sure that he was allowed to take her home with him, despite the fact that both Padma and Parvati's parents had given their express permission for that to happen.

The healer seemed to see some of his reservations and smiled at him reassuringly.

"You know, she won't be the same for a while now," the healer remarked, "We can't keep her here until she's fully better so we send everyone home around half way to recover. Nothing will go wrong if you stick to this," she handed him a piece of paper with different types of potions on it and what they did, "You'll be fine Mr. Thomas, she's lucky to have you."

Dean accepted the list and signed the paper on the desk to say that she had officially signed out but despite the healer's reassurance that nothing would go wrong and it was natural for her to be slightly different after all that she had suffered, Dean couldn't help thinking as they walked out of St. Mungo's onto the busy street outside that there was something wrong.

He dismissed it quickly as paranoia and, keeping a tight hold of Parvati's hand, turned on the spot and disapparated, focussing on the apparition site in the alleyway of his street. He knew that Parvati wouldn't like the alleyway, not after what he had seen of her memories at Theodore's trial, but there was no other way to get home other than that. The Knight bus didn't operate on Sundays.

The squeezing sensation of apparition stopped abruptly and Dean opened his eyes. He looked sideways at Parvati who still had her eyes squeezed shut.

"Parvati," Dean said slowly.

"Yeah," she whispered, her eyes still shut.

"Keep your eyes shut for me," Dean said, "You can open them in about thirty seconds, don't worry. I'll guide you."

He was both surprised and relieved when he saw her nod her head slowly and clung to his hand a little more tightly. Despite what she'd been through she was glad that she still could trust him although he felt like she shouldn't. He knew that once people had gone through a traumatic experience that learning to trust again would be hard, but Parvati seemed to trust him with her life.

"Alright," he said as they reached the end of the alley, "you can open your eyes now."

He looked at her as she slowly opened her eyes and blinked at the bright light of the morning.

"It's really bright out here," Parvati said. Dean laughed, of everything she could've said she remarked on how bright it was.

"Come on," Dean said with a smile, "Let's go home."

"Home?" Parvati questioned.

"Oh, you don't have to call it home if you don't want to, but you're staying with me until Padma and Terry get back from Wales, then you'll go and live with them for a while, if you want to that is?"

Parvati shrugged, "I don't know what I want."

"That's fine too," Dean said, taking her hand in his and leading her towards his house

"It's not going to be the most comfortable few weeks of your life," Dean said as they reached the top of the staircase, "I don't actually own beds as you may remember."

Parvati nodded with a slight smile as Dean flicked his wand at the door and it swung open, "After you good lady," Dean said in mock poshness and bowed her through the door.

The flat smelled musty after weeks of no use and he remembered from seeing Parvati's memories at the trial, that musty smells could trigger her. Dean quickly waved his wands at the curtains and windows which flew apart and opened politely, letting the fresh smells of outside waft in. The bed on the couch was still made up from the last time that Parvati had been here, although Dean had changed the sheets, the first ones had a little blood on them.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as she sat down on her 'bed' if you could call it that.

"Tired," she muttered,

"Do you want to go to sleep?" Dean asked and Parvati nodded, her eyelids drooping considerably.

"I'll get you the sleeping potion," Dean said, walking over to his kitchen and starting to look for the sleeping potions that he had there.

"It's okay," Parvati mumbled, "I can fall asleep by myself now Dean."

Dean chuckled, "it's not just to make you fall asleep, it's to stop you from having bad dreams as well."

"I'm not three," Parvati said, putting her head to the pillow, "I can deal with nightmares."

And with that she slipped off to sleep. Dean immediately started to panic, what if she had a nightmare and he couldn't wake her up again? He had only experienced that twice and it had been terrifying both times. He sat down on the couch opposite her because the only thing to do now was to wait for her either to have nightmares or to wake up again.

Dean found himself drifting back to the trial. The atmosphere had been so tense that you could've sliced it with a knife. Dean had been able to see Theodore for the whole duration and with every second that passed he just wanted to kill him more and more, it was only the fact that Padma had her hand firmly on his leg that he didn't jump up and try to curse the piece of shit right then and there.

He remembered them projecting Parvati's memories onto the stone wall behind Theodore's seat and feeling ill when he saw how Theodore had treated her even before he was aware of the abuse that was going on and by the time they had reached the part just after Parvati had been taken back from Dean and into the cellar by Theodore, he almost threw up. Most members of the Wizenagamot were averting their eyes when it had got to that point, all scribbling "guilty" on their notepads. It was at this point that Dean realised why Parvati had such violent nightmares.

Meanwhile, Theodore had just sat there and smiled his evil predator smile, making Dean want to poke his wand into his eye and jiggle it around in there for a while before performing the killing curse for he was sure that nothing would give him a greater satisfaction. However, he supposed that twenty-five years to life in Azkaban was enough for him, at least the bastard would be rotting for twenty-five years. Dean hoped that the Dementors would go crazy and suck out his soul.

Both Dean and Padma had left the trial room completely traumatised from what they had seen and Padma had immediately gone to oversee the destruction of the memories, neither of them wanted Parvati to ever find out what they had had to do in order to get Theodore prosecuted.

The one thing that kept haunting Dean's dreams, however, was not the viewing of Parvati's memories, not the smile that Theodore had had on his face for the entire time, but what Theodore had said at the end of the trial when he was asked why he had done what he did instead of abiding by the laws of marriage and loving her like he said he would when they had taken their vows. He had just looked up at the Jury and said one simple phrase that had struck Dean dumb, "Because it made me happy."

Dean hadn't forgotten his face, his manic smile and his wide eyes when he had said that. Every time Dean closed his eyes he could see it behind his eyelids and that was the only part that genuinely scared him. If hurting others made him happy, how many others were there out there with husbands or wives that hurt them to make them happy? It was then, in his small flat in the middle of London that Dean decided that he wasn't going to rest until he found out all the cases of domestic abuse in the country and fixed it, because nobody deserved to be treated that way.

* * *

Parvati regretted falling asleep every time that she did. She regretted shutting her eyes and letting her mind drift off into her subconscious because all it was met with was Theodore's looming face and manic, crazy eyes. He would always do unspeakable things to her in the dream and she would always either wake up with Dean shaking her shoulders or covered in sweat while Dean yelled at her. She had learned to control how she reacted to the dreams over time until she was able to wake up by herself and not be forced to do so. But that had been on the sleeping potion which dulled her senses and was supposed to give her dreamless sleep, but she supposed that the memories were too strong to be siphoned away when she shut her eyes by a simple potion. What she had learned to control herself over was nothing compared to what she had to control herself over now.

_The dream was in full colour, the edges around everything was sharp rather than blurry and she could see Theodore advancing towards her a whip coming out of the end of his wand and threatening her with it. She felt herself press into something hard at the back of her and assumed that it was a wall. _

"_Please, don't hurt me," she heard herself whimper and Theodore's grin only grew wider as he brought the whip down, slashing it across her face. Parvati cried out in pain as she felt blood start to flow from where it had struck her. He brought it down again, this time over her bare chest and she screamed as the white hot pain coursed through her. He brought the whip down on her again and again until she was flailing uncontrollably with pain. She could hear someone calling her name from the upper floor of the cellar and tried to call back but she couldn't talk. Fortunately, the voice was getting closer but Theodore had started to shake her shoulders violently and Parvati screamed a final scream…._

"Parvati!"

Parvati's eyes flew open to see Dean's face staring concernedly down at her, "Are you okay?" he asked. Parvati sat up abruptly, taking in where she was as if she had forgotten. She had been wrong to think that she could take a dream on without the help of the sleeping potion, she doubted that she ever would.

"Parvati," Dean said slowly, "Are you alright?"

Parvati had tried to stay strong, she really had but she couldn't for much longer, everything bubbled over and she began to cry.

"Hey," Dean said, sitting beside her on the sofa and gathering her in his arms, "It's alright, he's not here. He's in Azkaban."

"It doesn't st-stop him fr-fom inhabiting e-every dr-dream that I have though," Parvati sobbed, "I c-can't escape him Dean!"

"He's not real," Dean said firmly, "Just tell yourself that the real Theodore is in Azkaban and he can't hurt you. I promise it will get better."

"I'm just so tired, Dean," Parvati sobbed, "I'm so tired but I can't sleep at all because every time I do he comes back and hurts me!"

Dean got up, strode over to the medicine cabinet and poured a cup of sleeping potion, "Here," he said, handing it to Parvati, "Seamus used to have pretty bad sleeping troubles too, this stuff basically knocks you out for about fifteen hours."

Parvati didn't protest, she accepted the glass and downed it in one. Dean hadn't been lying when he said that it knocks you out as she immediately began feeling drowsy.

She found Dean's arms around her once again, murmuring something into her ear, "just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, nobody can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound."

"Where did you get that from?" Parvati mumbled into his chest.

"It's an old muggle poem, my mum used to sing it to me and my sisters when we had nightmares," Dean said.

"That's nice," Parvati muttered before everything around her went blurry and she slipped into a smooth, dreamless sleep.

* * *

**AN: Another last minute typing spree so again, apologies for vagueness. **

**I'm off to see Skyfall now, which should be fun. I hope you all had a good week!**

**I'd love it if you could spare the time to leave me a review.**

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	10. Stand

Chapter 10  
Stand

Every second Dean was battling with his feelings.

He knew that he shouldn't do this, Parvati was still just recovering from her traumatic last marriage to Theodore and he knew that even if he told her about the feelings that he was still harbouring for her from when they had dated, she would never be able to return them. Not after what she'd been through. So Dean kept his feelings close to his chest and tried not to let any of them show as more than close friendship when Parvati was awake.

She seemed to sleep increasingly often and was unable to stay awake for extended periods of time. Really the only times that she woke up were to go to the toilet and eat. Dean saw the fact that she was eating as a good sign, he had read about too many people that didn't eat after they had gotten home from the hospital and made themselves very ill by doing so. Dean was also glad to see that she was putting on some of the weight that she had lost during the three days that she was trapped in the cellar with no food or water.

"Dean," Parvati mumbled in her half sleepy state. Dean shot up from the couch and was over to her side in a heartbeat.

"Yeah," he said, taking her hand with a smile.

"I just want to say thank you," she mumbled, "Thank you for doing all of this for me. You're a great friend."

Dean smiled, "What brought this on?"

"I would still be with _him_ if it wasn't for you. Thank you for giving me the courage to get out."

"That's okay," Dean said, more than slightly confused, "Are you alright Parvati?"

"Yeah," Parvati said, "Just a little hungry though."

"Same," Dean said, suddenly realising that his stomach was grumbling and he remembered that his last meal had been nearly eight hours ago, "I'll get something to eat. Do you want anything in particular?"

Parvati shook her head, "Just food."

Dean nodded and walked into the kitchen. Picking up the list of things that Parvati wasn't allowed to have because they would either trigger her or they would give her some reaction because of the medication that she was on.

Secretly, he was torn between not wanting Terry and Padma to ever come back from Wales so that she could stay with him for longer and wanting them to come back so that they could help him destroy his feelings for her because he knew that she could never return them.

He quickly threw some cheese on toast under the grill and flicked his wand at it, setting the machine to cook it faster and just the way that he liked it. He glanced back over at Parvati who still looked beautiful, even with the healed scars that decorated her face. He didn't know how anyone could stand to hurt such a beautiful face.

The grill dinged and Dean levitated the toast out of it and onto two plates before levitating the plates over to the coffee table.

"Here you go," Dean said as he sat down on his couch. Parvati looked at the toast and laughed. Dean was completely taken aback, this was the first time that she had laughed in ages. He literally couldn't remember the last time that she had laughed.

"Do you live off cheese on toast, Dean?" she asked with a smile and Dean realised that all he had eaten in the three days that she had been home with him was cheese on toast. He hadn't exactly had time for anything else.

"Sorry," He mumbled, "Do you want something else?"

"No," Parvati said, "It's fine, I like it."

"Are you sure, because I can-"

"Dean, I said it's fine," she said and he realised how much more beautiful she was when her angelic smile crossed her face. Dean grinned back at her.

"When do you think Padma will be back?" Parvati asked, swallowing her first bite of toast.

"Oh yeah," Dean said, remembering what he had meant to tell her when she woke up, "She flooed a few hours ago, she and Terry will be back on Wednesday and they said that they'll come and stay here if you want to stay here."

Parvati looked at her lap and whispered, "I want to stay here."

"Are you sure?" Dean said and Parvati nodded without hesitation.

"Is that okay with you?" Parvati asked.

"It's always okay with me," Dean said, "If you ever want to talk to or be with someone, you can count on me Parvati, because I'll be there."

Parvati smiled again making Dean's heart flutter, "Thank you Dean, you've been way to kind to me. I don't deserve it."

"What?" Dean said, completely taken aback as to why she would say this, "Of course you do."

"No, I don't," Parvati said, "Especially after what did to you."

"Of course you don- wait what?" Dean asked, still incredibly confused, "What did you do to me."

"I broke up with you," Parvati said, "I broke up with you for no other reason but the fact that you weren't interesting enough for me."

Dean knew all of this, but it didn't stop him from loving her in the slightest, it just made him sad.

"So?" He said, "that's all in the past now."'

"But I still did it, you have no motive to be nice to me but you still are," she said.

Dean set down his plate and got up from the couch, moving over to take Parvati's hand in his.

"It doesn't matter that you still did it, Parvati. Even if you weren't forced to marry_ him_ and you were looking for a place to stay I would've let you in because that's what friends do," Dean said, "I've forgiven you for that and right now I just want to see you well and safe."

"I don't know if I can forgive myself," Parvati sniffed.

"Please," Dean said, "Forgive yourself for me?"

Parvati looked up, tears in her eyes and nodded, "Only for you though,"

"Thank you," Dean said, and before he could stop himself he had lowered his head and kissed her hand. Parvati withdrew it as if she had been burned, looking petrified. Dean immediately realised his mistake.

"Oh god, Parvati, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that, that was so out of line. Oh god I don't even know what came over me."

Parvati was still looking at him with an expression of utmost horror on her face.

"Please Parvati, I'm so sorry."

Parvati seemed to pull herself together slightly, "Th-that's okay," she said, her voice shaking, "Just don't do it again."

Dean nodded fervently, mentally kicking himself for letting himself get so careless. He had promised himself that he wouldn't show any romantic feelings towards Parvati, and he had failed. He didn't know what had happened or what had compelled him to kiss her hand. Maybe it was just the heat of the moment that he had done it in. Maybe it was because of the fact that she was apologising for falling out of love with him and all that did was just make him fall even harder. Love was like fire, you get too close and someone always gets burnt. Dean had just experienced yet another burn.

* * *

"Are you sure that you're going to be alright here by yourself?" Dean asked as he pulled his coat on and started rushing around, trying to find all of the things that were necessary for work.

"Yeah," Parvati said, "I'll be alright. You said that Padma was coming around sometime today didn't you?"

"She should be here now," Dean said grimly, looking at his watch. As soon as he said that there was a tap on the door. "Speak of the devil," Dean muttered , opening the door to reveal Padma standing there with Isaac.

"You took your time," Dean said.

"I had to catch the knight bus!" Padma said irritably, "I can't apparate or floo with Isaac."

"Yeah whatever," Dean said, "I've got to go or I'll be late."

"Alright," Padma said as Dean pushed past her into the hallway, "I'll see you when you get back then?"

"Yeah," Dean said, "bye!"

And like that he had disappeared down the staircase.

Padma shut the door behind her and turned to face Parvati, a smile spreading across her face as she did so.

"Hey," she said happily, moving across the room to hug her sister, "How are you?"

"Recovering," Parvati said with a slight smile.

"That's great," Padma said, sitting down next to Parvati on the couch, "Recovery is good."

"Yeah," Parvati said, "I still can't sleep without the sleeping potion though."

"I don't blame you," Padma said, passing Isaac over to Parvati as she held her arms open for him.

"I just see him everywhere Pad," Parvati said, "In every shadow, in every nightmare, in the corner of my eye."

"Have you talked to Dean about this?" Padma asked as Parvati cradled Isaac in her arms.

"No," Parvati said truthfully, "I don't want him to think I'm weak."

Padma sighed in frustration, "Parvati, the only way you're going to face your demons is if you talk about it to someone."

"I don't want to," Parvati said, "I don't feel comfortable talking about it with him."

"Why not? He's one of your best friends," Padma said, cocking her head to the side.

Despite the fact that Parvati knew that there was nobody in the flat apart from her, Padma and Isaac, she still glanced around furtively before leaning in and whispering in a low voice to Padma, "He still loves me."

Padma's mouth dropped open, "No way," she said in surprise, "Really? After all this time? Now _that _is what I call dedication."

"This isn't funny Pad," Parvati said, "I don't love him as anything more than a friend."

"Yeah, _now_ you don't love him as anything more than a friend but give it a few years and you'll be surrounded by children," Padma joked. Parvati's breath hitched in her throat as memories started to flood back. She didn't know how Padma mentioning having children related to this but she suddenly felt scared and insecure. The shadows started appearing in the corners of her eyes again and she started to twitch, becoming increasingly paranoid.

She saw Padma put a hand to her mouth, "God, Parvati, I'm so sorry, forget that I said it."

"No," Parvati said, "I don't know what's wrong with me, don't be sorry."

"There's nothing wrong with you," Padma said, putting a hand on her sister's arm, "I get that having children brings back bad memories for you."

"I don't understand," Parvati said, furrowing her brow.

Padma raised an eyebrow before shaking her head, "Anyway, have you made a decision?"

"About what?" Parvati asked, evidently confused.

Padma rolled her eyes, "About the baby, are you keeping it or getting an abortion."

"What baby?" Parvati asked, starting to become frustrated. Padma's eyes widened in realisation.

"Oh my god they didn't tell you," Padma said, her eyes becoming as wide as galleons.

"Tell me what?" Parvati said, her voice breaking in frustration.

"How could they have not told you? Honestly, I leave you in their care for the remainder of your stay in hospital and they don't even have the decency to tell you that you're pregnant," Padma spat angrily.

Parvati's jaw fell open in shock as her heart started to beat faster and faster, "I'm not pregnant," she said slowly, "Nu uh, no way."

Padma's brow creased with concern, "I'm really sorry to break it to you this way Parvati, but it's true."

"No it's not," Parvati said, standing up and storming over to the full length mirror, there was no noticeable bulge in her stomach, "I'm not pregnant Padma!"

Padma looked at her sympathetically, "Look, I'm sorry to say it like this but I've seen the memories. He raped you Parvati, without protection. What do you think is going to come out of that?"

"What?" Parvati said, tears welling in her eyes, "Did you just say you'd seen my memories?"

Padma seemed to regret her outburst immediately, "Yes," she muttered.

"How?" Parvati said incredulously, "How have you seen inside my head?"

"A pensive, projected onto a wall at the trial that convicted Theodore Nott. How do you think we got him convicted so easily?"

"You took my memories without my permission!" Parvati shrieked.

Padma cringed, "We had to Padma, nobody else knew what had happened to you apart from the arse and you. We couldn't get his version of events because he had messed with them."

"Why couldn't you just knock him out and extract them like you did to me?" Parvati yelled, tears starting to fall down her cheeks.

"That's exactly what they did," Padma said, "but he permanently did something to them in his head. They weren't the real version of events. Parvati he would still be loose if we hadn't used those memories."

"Did it ever occur to you that I might want some privacy?!" Parvati yelled through her tears, "The whole damn wizarding world knows about my life and now the whole of the Wizenagamot knows how it all happened."

"I'm sorry!" Padma said as Parvati collapsed onto Dean's couch, sobbing, "I'm so, so sorry but would you rather him be loose in the world or in Azkaban rotting with the dementors? You weren't there at the trial, Par, he was a freaking psycho maniac, trust me I was glad to see him dragged off by the dementors."

Parvati looked up at Padma with puffy eyes, "A-am I really pregnant, Padma?"

The look in Padma's eyes was identical to that of her sister's, "Yes," Padma said, "They told me after you'd been in the hospital for six weeks. They said you were about four weeks."

"But that would make me five months by now," Parvati said, "And I haven't gotten any bigger!"

"You have though," Padma said, "Sorry, not to be a bitch or anything but you have gained a lot of weight since I last saw you."

"The last time you saw me, I was lying in a hospital bed almost dead from dehydration and starvation. Of course I've put on weight since you last saw me!"

"Parvati, I know what I heard and the healers are experts. If you don't believe me we can go there now and get it confirmed. Would you like that?" Padma asked.

"Yes!" Parvati exploded, "I would like that very much so that if I am pregnant, I can get a bloody abortion!"

"Fine!" Padma said, "Grab your coat and we'll go."

And with that Isaac started to cry. Both Parvati and Padma's attention snapped back to him, having forgotten that he was there in the heat of the argument. Parvati remembered how she felt when Isaac was born. She hadn't loved anyone more in her life. He was the cutest thing that she had ever laid eyes upon and it had been then that she had decided that she had wanted children of her own. But this was different. She couldn't have Theodore's baby. Not now, not ever.

* * *

**AN: Well I think it's safe to say that I hate my brother. He stepped on our modem and it broke which is why this chapter is so late. Not happy.**

**Anyway. I saw the Perks of Being A Wallflower today because I had no internet (yes Okay, I know it came out like three months ago in England and America but Australia sucks so it only just came out like three days ago here.) and it was SO AMAZING YOU SHOULD ALL GO AND SEE IT! I just yelled OTP out at any romantic moment in the movie that involved a character named Charlie and a character named Sam {who is played by Emma Watson in case you didn't know} **

**AND! WOW GUYS! This story got so much response in the last chapter! I love people right now. **

**Anyway, I'd love it if you could spare me the time to review. They will be appreciated forever and always. **

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	11. Misery

Chapter 11  
Misery

Parvati felt numb. She felt as if everything was moving in slow motion and she could hear her heart beating in her ears as she stared slightly slack jawed at the Healer who had just confirmed what Padma had been telling her all along.

"No," Parvati said, shaking her head dismissively, "You've made some kind of mistake, I'm not pregnant."

The healer gave her a sad smile and nodded, "I'm afraid you are, Mrs Nott."

"Don't call me that!" Parvati spat angrily, gripping the sides of the bed that she was lying on tightly as things that she did not want to see began to strain at the edges of her vision. Her breathing became faster as the dark shapes and memories began to seep into the corners of her mind again.

"Parvati," Padma said, pushing the Healer aside and grabbing Parvati's shoulders as she started to twitch slightly, trying to stop the memories from coming back altogether, "Parvati stay with me. Come on Par, you can fight it."

"What's wrong with her?" The healer asked cautiously.

"Like you don't know," Padma snapped, not taking her eyes off Parvati, who was starting to calm down a bit.

"No, I don't actually," the healer said coolly, obviously not impressed with Padma's tone, "Enlighten me."

Padma sighed and shook her head, "I can't, not with her in the room."

The healer suddenly seemed to understand and nodded curtly. Parvati shivered slightly as she saw the specks of black around the edges of her vision retreat. She hated that feeling of blackness and lost hope that came back to her immediately every time somebody mentioned something to do with her life with _him._

"Alright, Miss Patil?" she looked at Padma for confirmation on her surname. Padma nodded once and the Healer proceeded with her results, "There is no doubt about it, you are pregnant."

Parvati shook her head stubbornly, "I'm not," she said, "I'm not, I'm not, I'm not."

"Look," the Healer said, showing Parvati an ultrasound photograph, purposely covering the name at the top with her thumb, "this is your baby."

Parvati's eyes widened at the sight of the moving ultrasound and that was when it really hit home. She was actually pregnant. She was actually going to have _his _baby.

"I want an abortion," she stammered. The healer looked at her in slight shock.

"I-I'm sorry?" she asked in confusion.

"I want an abortion," Parvati said, articulating every word with anger behind it.

"We can't do that," the healer said, still slightly taken aback by Parvati's abrupt request.

"Why not?" Parvati asked, looking from Padma to the healer.

"Because we can't perform an abortion when you're this far into your pregnancy, if you wanted an abortion you should've said so when you came in at eight weeks."

"I didn't come in at eight weeks!" Parvati shrieked, "You want to know why I didn't? Because I didn't even _know_ that I was pregnant until about half an hour ago!"

"How is that even possible?" The healer asked, still confused.

"I can't do this," Parvati said, jumping down from the bed and walking out without a backwards glance. The Healer, who had no idea what was going on in the slightest turned to Padma, the look on her face demanding answers.

"Do you know the meaning of this?" The healer asked irritably. Padma nodded slightly, adjusting Isaac in her arms.

"Would you care to explain?"

Padma sighed and sat down in the chair next to the bed that Parvati had been. sitting on moments before, "She hasn't had the best year." She said simply. The healer raised an eyebrow before giving Padma a look that told her to continue, "She was forced into marrying some twat because of the marriage law between purebloods and he wasn't the nicest of men," she said, pursing her lips together, "He did something to her that caused her to be hospitalised for six months and the Healer's told me that she was pregnant as soon as they knew, but then my husband's mother died and we had to leave her with a friend who didn't know either. I think they expected me to tell him to tell her, but that didn't happen. She's had no idea until now."

"That's horrible," The healer said, "Imagine that bombshell being dropped on you after six months in hospital."

"I know," Padma said, "The only reason that I brought it up was because I thought that she knew."

"You would've had to have told her eventually," the Healer said. There was a small pause before the Healer addressed the elephant in the room, "So I'm guessing the reason that she wants this abortion so badly is because he raped her?"

Padma nodded solemnly, "Yeah."

"I wish I could give it to her," the healer said, "but we can't after she's moved into the second trimester."

Padma stood up, "I understand, I'll tell her that."

"Thank you," the Healer said, "And tell her that I'm sorry about what happened."

"I don't think it would be wise to bring that up," Padma said, "But I'll try to convey it as indirectly as possible."

The healer nodded, "Also, tell her that her options are either to keep the baby when it is born or to give it up for adoption."

Padma nodded curtly, "Okay, I'll tell her but I think I already know what she wants to do after its born."

Both Padma and the Healer exchanged a knowing look before'- Padma turned and followed her sister out into the Hallway.

* * *

When Dean arrived home to find the flat empty, his immediate thought was that Theodore had managed to escape Azkaban, had broken back into his flat and had taken Parvati, Padma and Isaac hostage in exchange for his freedom or something. But then Dean realised that he had been questioning Theodore in Azkaban only half an hour beforehand and that there was no way he could've gotten loose, swum across the ocean to the nearest land and gotten to Dean's flat in Half an hour without his wand.

"Hello?" he called, "Is anyone there?"

There was no answer. Dean's heart began to pound quickly in his chest, every horror movie that he had ever seen in his life coming back to haunt him, "Parvati, Padma? Are you here?"

There was still no answer. He reached sideways and flicked on the lights, almost blinding himself as his eyes adjusted to the sudden light that was slicing through the darkness. Squinting around the room, he saw nothing that ever suggested that Parvati and Padma were ever here. His heart threatened to beat out of his chest as he walked into the kitchen slowly, thinking that they could've been making dinner and had gone out to buy some more ingredients. Instead, he found a note.

So many different scenarios coursed through Dean's mind at the sight of the note. It could be a ransom note, or a note full of clues leading him to where Parvati and Padma were being held. He unfolded it with fumbling fingers and read it nervously.

_Dean,_

_We've gone to St Mungo's, don't know when we'll be back. Don't worry about us and don't cook dinner, we'll get takeaway._

_Padma_

The relief that coursed through his veins was indescribable. He didn't even know why he had thought of any of the other stuff. It seemed so irrational now that he thought about it. He guessed that he was just paranoid after what had happened to Parvati and how Theodore had managed to find them just after asking the conductor of the knight bus for directions.

He read the note over and laughed slightly at the bit that told him not to cook dinner. He guessed that it was a dig at how much he ate cheese on toast. Secretly, he was grateful that they were getting takeaway, he was getting sick of Cheese on toast for every meal and he was the one that decided what he ate.

Sitting down on the couch he pulled out his work and began to copy out the notes that he had written when he had interviewed Theodore in Azkaban. He hadn't wanted to do it, especially after what he did to Parvati but at the same time he was curious to know what Theodore's motive behind the abuse was because nobody was just an abusive git for no reason.

He began to rewrite the notes into a transcript in order. Theodore had seemed more loopy than the last time, but had had no control over what secrets came out of his mouth, revealing everything to Dean, who was yet to make sense of the garbled words that had come out of his mouth.

Carefully, he began to write on a fresh piece of paper all of the words that had been the most hard to translate, which were probably the best kept secrets. The questions that had the most mixed up words were the ones in which Dean had asked him why he had done what he did. There was one sentence that took Dean forty five minutes to make sense of and when he finally did, he dropped his quill in shock. The sentence, when said normally read.

_I saw my father do it to my mother, it's normal in a marriage isn't it?_

* * *

**AN: I'd love it if you could leave a review. It would make me happy. **

**Until Next Time**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	12. Not Alone

Chapter 12  
Not Alone

Dean sat there, his jaw clenched as he stared down at the statement. He didn't know why he was surprised. It did, after all explain why Theodore was such an unhappy person while they were at Hogwarts and it did wholly explain why he did what he did to Parvati. Dean sighed and sat back on the couch, looking up at the ceiling and thinking of all of the paperwork this was going to need if he was to report it, which he would have to eventually. Despite the fact that he had wanted the full story on why Theodore had done what he did so that they might have something interesting come out of the case other than the fact that Theodore was a monster, Dean found himself with a strong urge to pretend that he had never deciphered the sounds that Theodore had emitted and turn in a report saying that Theodore had gone insane. He knew that the only reason for this urge was because he was personally involved in the matter. He hated Theodore for what he had done to Parvati, for all of the pain that he had caused her, some of which would last forever in the form of memories but now that he had found this out about her he couldn't seem to hate the man with such a burning passion as he had beforehand, even though he knew that he should. He couldn't shake the feeling and the thought that it wasn't Theodore's fault. _But it was his fault!_ Dean thought, _he didn't have to beat and rape her. _

_Yes, but he doesn't know any different_! Another smaller voice in another part of his brain said.

Dean was completely torn between feeling sorry for him as he must've had such an awful childhood, and from hating his guts because he had done that to Parvati. He leaned forward, gripping his hair tightly as his feelings clashed together in a sea of confusion.

There was a knock on the door, making Dean jump almost a foot in the air. He quickly stuffed all of the paperwork inside his briefcase and stowed the briefcase underneath the couch as an extra precaution to make sure that Parvati never found out.

"It's open," he called.

He was barely halfway to the door when it clicked open to reveal Padma, Parvati and Isaac standing there with bags upon bags of groceries.

"Come on then," Padma said, "Help us bring it all in."

Dean stared at them, dumbfounded, "Uh," he said, still confused as to why they had not only bought dinner, but an amount of food that probably couldn't fit in his pantry.

"Dean do I look like I've got ten hands?" Padma said exasperatedly, adjusting Isaac on her hip.

"No," Dean said, shaking himself out of his daze and drawing his wand as he moved forward to relieve Parvati of the three bags that she was carrying with a small smile, "I got it," he said and she let them go almost in relief.

Dean levitated most of the bags inside with his wand and dumped them unceremoniously on the kitchen bench.

"So," he said, turning around, "Does anyone want to explain why I have this much food in my kitchen? It's only me in this flat."

Padma scoffed, "Dean, you live off tea and cheese on toast, it's time you started to shake up your diet a little."

"I'm not a family of ten!" Dean said in disbelief looking around at all of the food, "Padma this could cure world hunger!"

Padma laughed, "Well there may not be ten people living here at the moment, but there sure as hell is more than one, so as long as I'm here, we're not eating cheese on toast at all."

"You're staying?" Dean asked in confusion.

Padma gave him a blank look, "Of course I'm staying, you didn't think that I'd just dump Parvati on you and run off to Wales with Terry did you? No, Isaac and I are staying here until Terry and his family can sort the whole thing with his mother's will out, then we'll take Parvati back to Bristol with us."

"Uh, well there isn't a lot of room in this place," Dean said, "and I haven't got any mattresses so you may be sleeping on the floor."

"What do you think the blow up mattresses are for then?" Padma said, pointing to a bag. Dean rolled his eyes. This was definitely Padma, always prepared for any situation.

"Alright then," Dean said, giving in, "You two want to tell me why you went gallivanting off to St Mungos?" he looked from Padma to Parvati, searching for answers in their eyes. It was then that he noticed that Parvati's eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. His gaze flicked back to Padma, questions written all over his face. Padma immediately mouthed, _I'll tell you later_ and Dean could only imagine that it wasn't good news.

"Right then," Padma said, "we didn't know what food you liked so we just got Chinese, hope that's okay?"

"Yeah, Chinese is fine," Dean said, as he watched Padma hand Isaac to Parvati, his thoughts on completely different things than what they were eating for dinner. He had noticed a change in Parvati's demeanour and the way that she moved, "Uh, Padma do you want to help me dish it out?" he asked, hoping to wriggle some answers out of her.

Padma nodded and moved over to Dean, taking the plastic containers out of the bag as Dean pulled out three plates and one bowl for Isaac.

"So," he said in hushed tones, "Why did you go to St Mungo's?"

Padma glanced anxiously behind her to see that Parvati was still playing with Isaac, "Dean I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you," she said urgently, "I honestly thought that the healers would but evidently they didn't."

"Tell me what?" Dean said, stopping what he was doing to listen to what Padma was saying.

Padma glanced around again before lowering her voice to such a whisper that Dean couldn't be sure that he heard her right.

"She's pregnant," Padma whispered.

"What?" Dean asked, using all of his self-restraint to not raise his voice, "are you serious?"

Padma nodded seriously, "Five months."

"What?" Dean hissed, "How could something that big slip your mind?"

Padma fired up, "My mother-in-law died!" Padma whispered, "is that not a big enough situation to drive it from my mind?"

Dean faltered, seeing where he had gone wrong there, "Well why didn't the healers tell me?"

"That's what I want to know," Padma said, "They obviously thought that either a) I would tell you or b) you weren't privy to the information."

"Well that's freaking brilliant," Dean said sarcastically, moving a dim sim onto his plate with such force that it bounced onto the countertop, "Just brilliant. She can't get an abortion this late into her pregnancy can she?"

Padma shook her head sadly, "It's too late, she either has to keep the baby or give it up for adoption once it's born."

"I'm going to bloody sue St. Mungo's!" Dean said, "If they'd told me when they told you then we would be in this mess. She's already been through enough; she doesn't need to go through this!" Dean said angrily, not knowing how he was keeping his voice to a whisper.

"You're talking to me like _I'm_ the bad guy in this Dean," Padma said, putting her hands on his shoulders as he seethed , "I'm on her side, we both are."

Dean let out a long sigh, "Sorry," he said, "It's been a long day."

"Yeah," Padma said, "For you and me."

* * *

Parvati could vaguely hear them whispering behind her as she cradled Isaac in her arms, staring at nothing. She knew that Padma was telling Dean about what had happened today but she was glad that she was whispering because she knew that if she could make out the words that her body would shut down and she had to stop that from happening. She had tried to be strong for so long, tried to act like nothing affected her, that she was completely bulletproof but after this, she found herself an emotional wreck, Padma's words from before drifted back to her.

"_You don't have to be strong twenty-four hours a day, Parvati." _

To which Parvati had responded, _"I have to try_."

And try she must. She wanted everything to go back to the way it was before she had been forced into marrying that bastard, before she was afraid to sleep without sleeping potion, before all of the scars started to litter her body and her mind. Parvati had been determined for this to happen when she had returned from the hospital but now that there was a living person growing inside her it was a lot harder to make an effort to return to normal.

How could she just go back to her normal way of living now that this had happened? How could she try to return to her normal mindset when she had a living, breathing reminder to show for what she'd been through, when every day she woke to find a child that might so much resemble Theodore that she would collapse every time she saw it.

Parvati felt something move deep inside her abdomen and she flinched slightly, rousing Isaac from his sleep. He opened his big brown eyes and looked up at her, startled.

"Sorry," Parvati whispered, readjusting her hold on him as he closed his eyes again.

She felt her heart hammering at a thousand miles an hour as her free hand flew to her abdomen, probing around gently. Was that movement the baby? Was it telling her that it was there, just reminding her of its existence, reminding her of how it came to be.

She looked down at Isaac's sleeping form and wondered if she would ever look at her child as Padma looked at Isaac. With so much love in her eyes that it looked like she might burst open with it. Would she ever have that pleasure? Or would she never be able to look upon it without remembering what happened to her.

She knew that something had to be done, but what? She could kill herself, that would work in getting rid of the baby but then what would all her fighting be for? If she killed herself now she would break Padma's heart, not to mention Dean's. She knew that she couldn't bring herself to do anything to harm herself in order to hurt the baby. She would have to deal with it in other ways. Other ways that hadn't been thought up yet.

"Dinner is served," Dean said in a mock French accent, placing a plate of rice, dim sim's and noodles in front of her.

"Thanks," she said with a smile as Padma offered to take Isaac to bed. Parvati picked up her plate and found that once she put the first spoonful of noodles in her mouth that she was very hungry. She hadn't eaten all day.

"Dean," she whispered as she tried to refrain herself from shovelling the whole plate into her mouth at once.

"Yeah?" Dean said, looking up and smiling at her.

Parvati drew a shaky breath and spoke the words that she had been thinking since she and Padma had left St. Mungo's.

"What am I going to do?" she whispered and she knew in a heartbeat that Dean knew what she was talking about. He had set his plate on the coffee table and was sitting next to her, taking her hand in his in less than three seconds.

"I don't know," Dean said truthfully, "But we're going to get through this, you, me and Padma. You're not alone Parvati, you never will be, not ever, do you know why?"

Parvati shook her head, "Because you're here, with me."

* * *

**AN: Hello! I'm back again! I took a break over Christmas to regather my thoughts and flesh out the planning of this story. (I was actually stuffing my face with food.)**

**I hope you all had a great festive season and that you all enjoy 2013 because 2012 was a total bitch to me. **

**Also, before I forget, every week this year, I'll be gifting someone a fic of their choice. All you have to do is PM me before all the spots are taken! What to do is on my profile under "GIVING BACK IN 2013" I'd love it if some of you could help me fill up my spots! **

**HAPPY NEW YEAR!**

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	13. Fighter

Chapter 13  
Fighter

She was determined not to let this beat her.

She couldn't let it beat her, she had to be strong like she normally was. She didn't care about what Dean and Padma said when she bit her lip and didn't cry in front of them and they told her that it was okay to cry and that she had been through enough for it to be acceptable to cry at a random time. She was going to face her fears and confront the memories; there was no way she was going to go on like this, a scared replica of her former self.

She knew that if she tried hard enough that she would be able to fight through it. She couldn't stay like this for the rest of her life, especially now that she was going to have to raise a child what was the result of her being like this.

She knew as soon as the Healer refused her request for an abortion that she had two options. Option one was to give the baby up for adoption, option two was to keep it. For a few hours after the first ultrasound she had at five months, she had been hell bent on getting the baby away from her as soon as it was out of her body. She didn't know what had made her change her mind but as far as she was concerned, adoption was now out of the question.

Sitting up in the darkness, she looked at the sleeping silhouettes of her nephew and sister on two blow up mattresses on the ground. She envied them, their sleep was undisturbed by nightmares, but she appreciated the fact that they were there. She enjoyed Dean's company but there was a security that Padma gave her that Dean could never give. Padma made this place feel like home.

She was thankful for the slither of moonlight that seeped through the curtains, alleviating some of the darkness that Parvati hated so much. She could just make out Dean's expression on the couch next to her. He was wearing that same strained, worried expression that he had worn when she had refused her sleeping potion. She appreciated the fact that he was concerned with her health but she really didn't want him to worry about her as much as he did. She was better now, well almost, but she had no injuries that would hinder her anymore and really, Dean could only help her fix the outside, he couldn't help her now. This was purely up to her. She had to fight through it.

A quick glance at the clock on the mantelpiece told her that it was almost three in the morning. Almost four hours she had been lying there, psyching herself up for her first sleep without the sleeping potion in weeks. She lay back down, knowing that if she didn't sleep now, she would sleep for far longer than she normally did and it would prolong the dreams that she knew were inevitable.

Pulling the blankets up over her shoulders, she shut her eyes, plunging herself into darkness. Almost immediately she started to see a dark shape advancing on her. It was the same dark shape she saw every time she shut her eyes for an extended period of time. It became larger and larger the longer she kept her eyes shut. Fighting the urge to open her eyes and reassure herself that she was indeed safe, she pulled the covers tighter around her and kept her eyes shut.

_It's not real, it's not real, it's not real._ She repeated over and over again, whispering the words quietly through her lips, _It's just a memory, it's not real. _

_But it was real once_, a sly voice said in the back of her head, _It's a memory because it was real once._ Parvati ignored it, driving the thought out of her mind by thinking of happy things; her years at Hogwarts, the Yule Ball with Harry and how bad he was at dancing, the memory made her smile and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. She remembered when Padma and Terry got married, and when Isaac was born. And for the first time in months, Parvati Patil fell asleep with a smile on her face.

* * *

The sun shining through a gap in the curtains pried Dean's eyes open early that morning. In a way, he was glad that it was finally the weekend, but after finding out what he had found out about Theodore last night, he was eager to go back to Azkaban and question him some more. That and he wanted to get his hands on Theodore's parents' files.

As Dean sat up, a thought crossed his mind. It was only his day off, there would still be people in the office and it wasn't like it was illegal for him to come in on his day off to do some extra research.

As quietly as possible, he slipped into the bathroom, showered and got dressed as if he were just going down to the shops. On his way out of the door, he grabbed one of the Museli Bars that Padma had bought yesterday and put it in his briefcase.

He was about to shut the door behind him when he realised that something was missing. Backtracking quickly into his flat he looked around to see Parvati sleeping soundly on her couch with the ghost of a smile on her face. Confused, he straightened up and walked into the kitchen, wondering if she'd gotten up in the night and taken the potion that he had mixed for her before she had declined it, but it was still where he left it in the cupboard, completely untouched. Dean walked back around to where she was sleeping and made sure that she was actually breathing. She was. He could see her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. There was no other way Dean could see it other than the fact that she had simply fallen asleep.

But how was that possible? There had only been two times that Dean had seen Parvati sleep without a sleeping potion, and both times he had had to force her to wake up as she thrashed around, screaming terrified screams that Dean would never forget. Yet here she was, sleeping soundly with a slight _smile_ of all things, on her face.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Isaac start to stir and knew that Padma would be up any second now. If he was going into work today he would have to go now, and solve the mystery of Parvati sleeping soundly without the sleeping potion later.

Picking up his briefcase, he walked quickly towards the door. He had just placed his hand on the doorknob however, when he heard a voice from behind him.

"And where do you think you're going?"

Dean turned to see Padma sitting up in bed, pushing her hair out of her face.

"Work," he said, feigning nonchalance.

"What? Dressed like that?"

"What's wrong with this?" Dean said indignantly.

"You're an auror Dean."

"I always wear this to work. It's more comfortable when I do filing. I've got changes of clothes in my locker." Dean said in exasperation, turning to exit the flat.

"Why are you going to work anyway? Parvati said that it was your day off today." Padma asked curiously.

_Damn_, Dean thought, as he quickly tried to pull something out of the air as an excuse to go into work today, "I just need to check over some of the stuff on Parvati's case."

Padma looked confused, "What case?"

Dean sighed, now he would have to explain all of the paperwork that had to be done following an arrest, "It's too complicated to explain right now. I have to go."

"No," Padma said firmly, "I'm sure that I can understand, sit down and we'll have a chat about this _case_."

Dean was becoming more and more irritated with Padma by the second. If only she knew what he had heard from Theodore the previous day, she wouldn't be protesting like this, "Look, Padma," Dean said, walking back across the room to look at her, "This is about Theodore. I uncovered something about him yesterday and I have to go into the office to do some more research. I'll let you know about everything when I get back."

The look in Padma's eyes changed from defiance to concern as she nodded her head quickly, "Alright," she said, "see you when you get back."

Sighing in relief, Dean rose to his feet just as Parvati started to stir. For some reason, he didn't want her to know that he was at work today. Maybe it was because of the nature of what he was going in for or maybe it was because he liked being around her too much and didn't want to disappoint when he was actually able to spend time with her, but he had to do this. He needed to know more about the monster that had put Parvati in this situation in order to properly judge him fairly.

Hurrying quickly down the street to the safe apparition spot, he found himself wondering what he would do with the information if Theodore had been telling the truth about his mother and father he found files on it. Surely it would be enough to have him released from prison if it was shown to the authorities, but did Dean want to have Theodore released from prison? He had almost killed Parvati, did he really want someone like that loose in the world? Sure, they'd probably take him to St Mungo's to recover in the mental ward but that was a place that could be escaped from, and Azkaban was unescapable, except in the rare occasion that you were an Animagus, which Theodore wasn't, they had checked with a simple revealing spell before sending him to the dementors.

He reached the piece of corrugated iron that marked the apparition safety zone and quickly turned on the spot. After a few brief moments of the uncomfortable squeezing sensation, Dean appeared in the Auror office at the ministry.

He didn't hesitate to make sure that he hadn't splinched himself like he normally did, but walked straight to the door across the room that was marked with the word 'FILES'

"Thomas!" he heard as he walked very deliberately over to it and turned around abruptly to see his boss, Mr. Darzky walking towards him.

"Yes sir?" he said.

"You're not supposed to be in today," Darzky said, "I gave you weekend's off for the next year to look after your little friend that was kidnapped."

"I know," Dean said as politely as was possible in the rushed state he was in, "I just have to find a couple of files on some people for research."

Darzky sighed and put a hand on Dean's shoulder, "Thomas, the reason I gave you weekends off for the rest of the year was so that you could have two days to be with your lady friend without having to think about work. Go home and be with her Thomas, she needs you."

Dean shrugged him off, "Her sister is with her, I have to do this research."

"Dean," Darzky said softly, "I know how it feels to have a loved one in pain, I really do, and my boss wasn't kind enough to give me time off when my wife needed it most and I don't want you to suffer the same."

"Oh, you think that Parvati and I are together?" Dean said in confusion, his brow creasing.

"Well, I could only assume seeing as you were so passionate about finding her and so upset when you found her like she was," Darzky said.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're just friends," Dean assured him, "We've been friends for over ten years, that's why I was worried about her when she was taken hostage by her ex-husband, not because of… _that."_ Dean knew in his heart that he was lying through his teeth, he did still fancy her but he knew that she didn't fancy him back, therefore he was trying to convince himself that they were still just friends.

"Oh," Darzky said, a blush starting to crawl up his cheeks, "I thought she was staying at your house?"

"She is," Dean said exasperatedly, "Because her parents live in India and her sister's husband is having family issues in Wales, so she and her sister are staying with me until everything gets sorted out."

"Okay then," Darzky said, drawing himself up to his full height as he attempted to retain some of his dignity, "Well, if you don't mind me asking, Thomas, what are you researching on your day off?"

Dean hesitated for a moment before realising that it couldn't hurt to tell Darzky what he was up to, he was his boss after all, "I went to visit Theodore Nott in Azkaban yesterday, I wanted to ask him why he did what he did to Parvati and it wasn't easy to make out, most of his speech is garbled anyway because of the mental stress that the Dementors have on him, but I managed to decipher it after a while and he had told me that his father used to do it to his mother and he thought it was normal, so that's why I'm here, to research his childhood and his parents."

Darzky seemed to stiffen slightly, "Well," he said awkwardly, "Go right ahead, I'll leave you to it."

"Thank you, sir." Dean said as Darzky dismissed him with a nod. Dean turned towards the filing room, a flush rising in his cheeks as he realised what Darzky must've thought when Dean had burst into the office, demanding that the Aurors help him find where Theodore Nott lived and then staging a rescue mission for Parvati. Dean had thought that the way that Darzky had looked at him during the whole ordeal had been weird and now he realised why. He had displayed every symptom of a worried boyfriend; the demands for help, the way he had tried to revive her at the scene, the way he had carried her out and taken her to St Mungo's and not left until he was allowed to see her, coming back every day until after she was out of the hospital. Dean wanted to be a worried boyfriend, but unfortunately, he was a worried ex-boyfriend that had just been friend zoned.

Shaking his head of the thoughts of when he and Parvati were together at the end of their sixth year and the start of their seventh, he lit his wand and walked into the filing room.

As he cast his wand light over the many draws marked with names, he realised that this room was most definitely bigger on the inside. It expanded for miles up into the ceiling and the room was so cavernous that he felt like if he yelled, it would echo back to him.

He shone his wand at the top of the nearest filing cabinet, finding the draw marked with the name 'AALI',

"Oh god," Dean said, shining the light down on the next surname to see that it was, '_AARON', "_This is going to be fun," he said sarcastically, seizing the nearest ladder and starting to climb quickly, knowing that it would take him a while to even get out of the 'A' section of the room.

Dean had just passed '_ATALA'_ when he noticed a large 'A' shining about five metres above him. He sighed in frustration as he shone his wand light out over the room to see large letters hung at his height in the middle of every shelf around the room.

"Bollocks," Dean said as he looked down only to see darkness below him, he was not going to find Theodore Nott's file in the 'A' section.

* * *

"It's Dean's day off," Parvati said, "Why's he gone into work?"

"Because he has to file some paperwork on the things he's working on," Padma replied as she fed Isaac some breakfast, "He told me before he went this morning, you weren't awake."

"What paperwork?" Parvati asked, "Did he say?"

"Just something about an exploding cauldron that took out three aurors last week," Padma shrugged as she wiped Isaac's chin.

"Oh," Parvati said, looking down at her cereal.

"Why? Did you want to talk to him?" Padma asked.

"Sort of, yeah," Parvati said, "I had a lot of time to think about stuff last night and I want to ask him something."

"What do you mean by 'a lot of time'?" Padma asked warily.

"About three hours," Parvati shrugged, "Give or take."

"Three hours?" Padma said in surprise, "You didn't take your potion last night, how did you even sleep at all?"

"I just thought of happy things," Parvati said, "You can have bad things happen to you but the bad things can never take away all of the happy memories that you've had. I just picked out the happy ones and used them to battle the bad ones."

Padma smiled, "That's great Par," she said, "What do you want to ask Dean? Maybe you could ask me?"

"No," Parvati said, spooning a spoonful of cereal into her mouth, "It's a guy thing that I need to ask."

"I'm married," Padma said indignantly.

"No," Parvati said, "I mean something that only a guy could answer."

"Oh," Padma said slowly, "Okay then what do you want to do today?" she asked quickly, changing the subject.

"I don't know," Parvati said, "I was all for staying here and just reading all day, I'm a little bit tired."

"I can do that," Padma said, "I can also tidy up Dean's flat as well, it's a freaking mess in here, I can't stand it."

Parvati laughed slightly as she drained the dregs of milk from the bottom of her bowl and set it down on the table. As she leaned back she felt something move abruptly inside her and gasped, a hand flying to her tummy, which was now starting to swell slightly.

"What's wrong?" Padma asked immediately, moving from the other side of the room to Parvati's side so quickly she could've apparated.

"Nothing," Parvati said, rubbing her abdomen, "It's just moving is all."

The concerned look on Padma's face vanished to be replaced with that of happiness, "I remember when –" but she cut herself off, evidently realising that she had been about to enter into painful territory on Parvati's part.

"No," Parvati said with a smile, "it's okay, you can keep talking. How else am I supposed to move on if people keep skirting around the subject?"

"You sure?" Padma said.

"Of course," Parvati said, "You were saying?"

Padma beamed at her and started to rattle on about her pregnancy with Isaac and how she had felt at the different stages. The whole time, Parvati felt her vision start to go dark around the edges, like she was about to black out, but she kept bringing up the happy memories of her childhood to fight them and it was working. She had tuned out what Padma was saying long ago to focus on this. She wasn't okay when people talked about pregnancy, or when people mentioned Theodore, or when people called her 'Mrs. Nott' as that was what was on the paperwork, but she could pretend to be okay until she actually was. And if that was what it took for people to start treating her like an adult and not like a child, that was what she was going to do.

* * *

**AN: Warning! Long Author's note ahead! **

**I wrote this at 2am and I was scaring the absolute crap out of myself because I was forced into watching 'Orphan' yesterday and it was the freaking creepiest thing I've ever seen in my life. It was so gross! I mean I was prepared for gore but not that freaking much gore! They showed the stabbing! They showed the freaking knife going into people! They showed people being beat up with hammers! I was not prepared for that! So I think it's safe to say that I'm scarred for life and the name Esther has been ruined for me and now whenever I watch the Hunger Games, Clove's character is going to be even more creepy because she's the freaking Orphan just grown up a bit and thrown into the Hunger Games (headcanon right there) But yeah, It wasn't scary per-se, the scene at the end didn't phase me at all (but Jesus the makeup is good on Isabelle Fuhrman) but it was the scenes where people were getting hurt or dying that just makes me freaked out. But it was actually a really good movie, the acting was brilliant! (Right now I'm just rambling so I'm just gonna try and not have nightmares by listening to some happy songs :)**

**Also, before I go, every week this year, I'll be gifting someone a fic of their choice. All you have to do is PM me before all the spots are taken! What to do is on my profile under "GIVING BACK IN 2013" I'd love it if some of you could help me fill up my spots! **

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	14. Revelations

Chapter 14  
Revelations

It seemed like hours before Dean finally found the right file for _'NOTT'_ there had been several other drawers marked with the same name, but none included the latest generation of Theodore Nott, only what must be his ancestors from the very distant past. Dean wasn't surprised that the Nott Family had six drawers dedicated to them, they were a very old and very rich pureblood family, Dean didn't know what he would expect from them.

Thumbing through the files in the drawer, he realised that he had no idea who exactly Theodore Nott's parents were or if his mother would be in the same filing cabinet as her husband and son just because she had married into the family. The filing room wasn't a familiar place for Dean, he sorted the filing and left it in piles for people to put away, somehow he started wishing he had taken the putting away part of that job; it would probably be less boring anyway, and he would know more about the ins and outs of what happened in the filing room.

Figuring that his best bet would be to find the section on Theodore, Dean ran his finger down to the very front of the drawer where he knew that the youngest members of the family would be, surely Theodore would be among the youngest in his family. He didn't have any brothers or sisters that Dean knew of, he would've seen them at the sorting ceremony during his many years at Hogwarts. This was when Dean found out that he was wildly wrong. At the front of the filing cabinet was the file of a girl who was, upon consulting her file, eight years old. Shocked, Dean quickly scanned down a copy of her birth certificate. She had been born in 1994 to Theodore Nott senior and a woman called Josephina Young. Looking at the age gap between Theodore Nott senior and Josephina Young, Dean could tell that Josephina Young had not been willing to create a child with him. Theodore Nott senior had been born in 1926, making him sixty-eight years old when she was born and Josephina Young had been born in 1979, making her only fifteen years old when her daughter was born. To Dean's dismay, there was no file for Josephina Young in there so he made a mental note to have a look in the 'Y' section for her name.

Moving onto the next age up, expecting to find Theodore, he was shocked to find another person, younger than Theodore in there as well. Pulling the file out he saw that the boy was eleven years old, a Slytherin at Hogwarts and was mothered by Katherine Waters. Dean almost threw up when he saw Katherine Waters' year of birth; 1978, making her just thirteen years old when her son was born. Dean didn't need to go through all of the files to know that most of the children were illegitimate and were not born because the parents loved each other and were married. Dean was almost certain that both the boy and the girl had been the result of rape. Disgusted, he pulled the files for all of Theodore Nott senior's children out of the drawer and stuffed them into his bag, intending to look over them later. After doing this, he finally came across Theodore's file. Opening it curiously, he looked inside to see what his mother's name had been so that he could find her file. Looking down the birth certificate, he could see that Theodore's mother had also been very young compared to his father, but not to the extent of the others, which was just sick and wrong.

"Fiona Martinez," he said slowly as his finger landed on the name of Theodore's mother. He made a mental note of it and stashed the file into his bag before doing the same with Theodore Nott senior's. Climbing down from the ladder quickly, he ran through the list of names that he had to find; Fiona Martinez, Josephina Young, Katherine Waters, Victoria Cast and Daisy Grant.

It didn't take him long when he realised that the room wasn't accio-proof. He probably should've tried that earlier and come to think of it, it was probably how the filers put away things and the ladders were for stupid people like Dean. As the files of the five different women that had mothered Theodore Nott senior's children soared towards him, Theodore sat down on the ground, pulling the files of the five children out of his bag and setting them down next to one another with their father's head at the centre. With the skill of a chaser, he caught all five of them effortlessly and lay them down next to their respective children. Dean had never considered himself any good at mystery solving, but seeing as he had all of the files on record right in front of him, he was definitely going to try. The problem was, where to start.

He supposed that he had better start with Theodore's father's file, because that was probably where all the drama started.

The first few paragraphs were things that Dean already knew; that he was in Azkaban for being a Death Eater, his pureblood heritage and his date of birth and early years, none of which Dean was particularly concerned about. It was when he reached the second paragraph, however, he started to feel sick as he read through what ministry officials had compiled on him.

_On February 24__th__ 1979, Nott, 53 at this time, married his first wife, Fiona Martinez (23) Despite accusations from family and friends that the marriage wasn't love as Martinez was thirty years younger than Nott, the couple insisted that they were genuinely in love. This was confirmed when in July of the same year, Nott and Martinez announced that they were going to have a child. _

_Theodore Nott junior was born on January 13__th__ 1980 and for a while the three of them seemed to be residing in complete happiness with Martinez taking care of their child while Nott worked, until in 1985, Martinez attempted to run off with her son, escaping what we now know as domestic violence. Nott managed to catch up with Martinez and their son and bring them back to the house. Later investigation into the mind of Theodore Nott junior showed that he had beaten Martinez until she was unconscious, Nott junior had tried to crawl to her to wake her up but his father had picked him up and thrown him against the wall, breaking his spine. Nott junior stayed conscious long enough to witness his mother's dying moments. _

_Martinez was found dead in a ditch about half a mile away from her home at six-thirty in the morning by travelling muggles, at first Nott denied all claims that he had murdered his wife and passed himself off as 'shocked and grieving' this strategy may have worked if a reporter hadn't asked young Theodore what he had thought of his mother's death once he was out of St. Mungos for his broken spine and he responded with 'Daddy was very mean to mummy. He hit her until she fell asleep and when I tried to wake her up, he threw me against a wall.'_

_Nott senior also initially denied these comments but refused to give his memories of the night, resulting in and investigation which lead to Nott junior being subject to the viewing of his memories of the night in court. The Wizenagamot sentenced Nott senior to life in Azkaban for murder. _

_However Nott senior, on being escorted to Azkaban managed to escape and go into hiding, leaving his son with his unmarried sister, Isabella Nott. _

_Three years later, in 1988, Nott senior resurfaced again with the birth of his second daughter, Fiona Nott, named after his last wife because, knowing that the ministry would be notified of another Nott birth, this would start the trail of looking for him again. By the time Ministry officials got to the place that he was living at with his girlfriend of the time, Victoria Cast, they arrived to find Victoria lying in a pool of blood and a two month old baby lying in a cot. Fiona Nott was sent to an orphanage and adopted out under the name of Fiona Cast, after her mother._

_In 1989, Nott senior, who had evaded the ministry for quite some time and now faced two lifetime sentences in prison, had another child, a daughter with twenty-year-old Daisy Grant who was left bound and gagged with a slit in her stomach in her own house when Nott realised that Ministry officials were after them. They arrived in time to save Grant and Grant was able to testify against him in court with memories and all. Grant now lives with her daughter Amelia; they have had no contact with Nott since. _

_In June of 1991, thirteen year old Katherine Waters was reported missing. Six months later, she was found deep in the woods also bound and gagged like Grant had been, although the only injuries that she had had administered to her were cuts and bruises which were later revealed to be marks from Nott's abusive ways. When Waters was found she was heavily pregnant, malnourished and heavily traumatised from her experience. The presentation of her memories in court told Ministry officials that she had been walking home from the local shops when she had been grabbed by Nott, taken to the cabin deep in the woods and raped and abused for several months afterwards. As Waters entered the sixth month of her pregnancy Nott abandoned her, stating that he did not want to look after her child. Upon giving birth to the child, Waters gave it up for adoption, stating that she couldn't be reminded of what had happened to her every day of her life. _

_In 1994, fifteen-year-old Josephina Young was sitting in the Hogs Head in Hogsmeade on a school trip when a man in a hood offered to buy her a drink. She had been having a rough day and accepted without a second thought. Throughout the afternoon, Nott kept buying her more and more drinks until she was so drunk that she couldn't tell if she was sitting or standing. According to memories later presented in front of the Wizenagamot, once Young was drunk enough, he lead her up to the bedrooms above the Hogs head and raped her, however this time he was not lucky enough to be able to move on after what he had done and when Young woke, he had no choice but to kidnap her. He couldn't let word get out about his identity now that she had seen it. Nott took her, like Waters to a hut in the middle of the forest where he became abusive when he was drunk, but when he was sober he would have sex with Young and tell her that he loved her. Young spent four months tied down on a bed before Nott realised that she was pregnant and abandoned her. Young managed to untie herself bye wriggling her hands free of the binds and then being able to free her feet. She was found in Hogsmeade, starving, cold and four months pregnant. Young carried the baby to term and when she gave birth to it, she set out to try and find its father. She was successful and in 1997, she and her daughter, Alisa found him in a bar in the North of England. Enraged that she had had the nerve to try and find him, Nott performed the killing curse on Young, knowing that she would never be allowed to go back to civilisation. Ministry officials, who had been searching for Nott for almost a decade now, found three year old Alissa in the same pub that her mother had died in and put her up for adoption under the name Alissa Young. _

_On May 2__nd__ 1998, the ministry was successful in capturing Nott alongside most of Lord Voldemort's supporters. Nott is serving three consecutive life sentences in jail plus eighty years for cases of abuse, rape and lying to ministry officials. He is never to be released from Azkaban prison. _

Dean looked up from the paper, not knowing whether he wanted to strangle Theodore's father or throw up right then and there. What he had done was disgusting, horrible, unnatural, cruel, Dean had run out of words to express his hate of what Theodore's father had done. He had taken three women's lives. Raped two girls under the age of seventeen, fathered five children, probably only one of which he stayed with the woman past the child's first birthday and he had made a lot of enemies. Dean felt like he didn't need to read any of the other files now. He knew that Martinez, Cast and Young were dead and that Waters had given the baby up for adoption and Grant kept it. All he needed to know was in that one biography of Theodore Nott senior. Everything he wanted to find out about why Theodore was like he was when it came to being married to Parvati had just been answered. Dean could see why Theodore had thought that beating and rape was normal in a marriage. His parents were the only married couple he was ever around as most of the Wizarding world knew quite well that Isabella Nott was an old hag that smelled of dead cats and was most definitely single.

After reading what he had just read, Dean couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor bastard. Abuse was all he knew and taking that out on Parvati wasn't his fault although Dean thought that if he had bothered to look at other happy couples he would've got the idea that abuse wasn't normal in a marriage.

Then came the debate.

Dean couldn't decide whether to turn his findings in or not. Turning them in would get Theodore released as he wasn't right mentally but keeping them hidden and pretending that he never found them wasn't very appealing either. Yes, he didn't want Theodore Nott back in the world but he didn't want to be responsible for someone's imprisonment.

Clenching his fists in frustration, he banished the other files of Theodore and his half-brothers and half-sisters and their mothers back to their respective drawers, which all shut with loud clangs. He stood up and stowed the file into his bag, making a note to show it to Padma once Parvati had fallen asleep.

He began to walk towards the door, itching to get out of the filing room. It wasn't so much the fact that it was a confined space (it was massive) but the fact that it was so eerie in there that he couldn't help feeling haunted by what he had just read. He was so glad to get out of here when he finally stepped back out into the office. It was just after lunch time as most people started to filter back in from break. He caught sight of his friend Hamish and waved. Hamish smiled and hurried over to him.

"Hey Dean," he said quickly, slapping a copy of the Daily Prophet into Dean's hand, "Take this for me or Darzky will have my head."

"Nice to see you too," Dean said sarcastically as Hamish walked off, giving him a wave goodbye. Dean shook his head and proceeded to try and make it across the throng of people to the fireplace. He was just about to burn the prophet in the flames as he had no use for it when he noticed the cover story. It jumped out at him because it was exactly like the one that had been published when Parvati had been found in Theodore Nott's cellar.

_ARRANGED MARRIAGES TURNED TO ARANGED FATALITIES _

His mouth slightly open, he looked at the sub heading.

_Pansy Parkinson found dead in home. Husband, Blaise Zabini is nowhere to be found._

"Oh shit," Dean said, tossing the paper aside and diving for the floo powder. Whatever happened he could not let Parvati see that newspaper.

* * *

**AN: Well this is my last update for a week because I'm going camping tomorrow and won't be back until the 25****th**** so I double updated this week so you'd have two chapters regardless of whether I went away or not. I hope you've been enjoying the story! If you have, please let me know by using that review box or PM as I'd really like to know what people think of my story.**

**Also, before I go, every week this year, I'll be gifting someone a fic of their choice. All you have to do is PM me before all the spots are taken! What to do is on my profile under "GIVING BACK IN 2013" I'd love it if some of you could help me fill up my spots! **

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	15. Demons

Chapter 15  
Demons

Parvati looked across the table at Padma quizzically as she read the _Daily Prophet_. Her sister had been reading the front page for at least half an hour now and Parvati couldn't help but wonder if there was something that she couldn't make sense of on there, because Padma was the sort of person to skim through a newspaper in five minutes.

"Interesting story, Pad?" Parvati asked as she adjusted Isaac on her knee. Padma looked up quickly before glancing back down at the paper.

"Yeah," Padma said abruptly, "Most interesting piece of crap that this paper has published in months."

"Oi," Parvati said, "Your son is present."

"He doesn't understand," Padma said, waving it off.

"You'd be surprised," Parvati said disapprovingly, "Do you remember when Rupesh was two and he dropped his crayons and stood there and said 'Ah fuck' because he'd heard dad say it the day before when he dropped the milk on his foot."

Padma laughed at the memory of their little brother, "It's hard to believe that little Rupe is almost fifteen," she reminisced, "How time flies."

"Yeah," Parvati smiled. She didn't think about her other siblings much, they all lived in India whereas Parvati and Padma lived in England. They never really had much contact with them as there was such a large age gap between them and their brothers, Rupesh and Ravi and an even larger one between them and their youngest sister, Pamela, none of them were especially close with each other. They still kept in contact with them though.

"When was the last time we saw Rupesh, Ravi and Pamela?" Padma asked.

"Well for me it was at your wedding," Parvati responded, "But Rupe is in fifth year so I haven't heard from him at all and Ravi and Pamela never wrote to me anyway."

"Ravi writes to me," Padma said thoughtfully, "I got a letter from him a few months ago asking me how girls minds work. He's apparently smitten with a girl in his year. I told him that thirteen was too young to have a girlfriend and he hasn't written back yet. I don't think he liked that too much."

Parvati laughed, "And Pamela?"

"She's five," Padma said, "She doesn't know how to write with a quill yet."

"Yeah I guess," Parvati said, thinking about how much of Pamela's life that she had missed from being in school and then choosing to live with Lavender until she was forced into marrying against her will. She didn't want to do that to her child.

"We should visit," Padma said, "They haven't even met Isaac yet."

"Yeah," Parvati said softly, "Maybe next year?"

Padma smiled sadly at her, knowing her reasoning for not wanting to visit straight away, "You know, If we're lucky, we might be able to get Rupesh and Ravi over for the Christmas holidays."

"Where would they sleep?" Parvati asked, gesturing around the small apartment, "It's hardly big enough for the four of us."

"We'll go back to my place, stupid," Padma said, folding the paper up and lobbing it over towards the garbage bin, which it landed in expertly.

"I dunno," Parvati said, looking around the apartment that had been her home for weeks now, "I want to stay here."

Padma grinned cheekily at her, clearly wanting to make a remark about Parvati being in love with Dean again, but restrained herself when she remembered what that subject had caused last time they had spoken.

"Well I'm going to have to go back to Bristol soon," Padma said, "Terry's not going to stay in Wales forever."

"I'll be fine," Parvati said with a shrug as she got up from her position and placed Isaac on her hip before making her way over to the bin to pick up the newspaper and read through it.

"Parvati, no!" Padma yelled, just as Parvati picked the paper out of the bin and unfolded it. Padma jumped up and snatched it out of her hands and set fire to it with her wand. But it was too late, Parvati had seen what was on the front page. She had seen the disturbing picture that they had placed there, she had seen the scenario and the outcome. Padma managed to pluck Isaac out of Parvati's arms as she became weak at the knees and sunk to the ground, her heart racing at one hundred miles an hour and the blackness at the edges of her vision threatening to overtake her.

"Parvati," Padma said, grabbing her shoulder forcefully and shaking it, "Come on, Par, stay with me, you're okay. It's okay, it's fine."

But Parvati knew that it wasn't fine. Pansy Parkinson was dead, dead as the result of an arranged marriage and Parvati knew that if Dean hadn't stepped in when he did, she would be dead right now, she would've gone the same way as Pansy Parkinson; dead in the house of nightmares with Theodore nowhere to be found. _It could've been her._

She felt giddy as more and more of the blackness containing the demons that she had been keeping at bay for so long overtook more and more of her vision. She heard someone screaming in the distance and knew that she had to reach them, but she couldn't. She couldn't get past the hulking figure rushing towards her. She couldn't hell who he was until he had fully advanced on her and it was then that she saw his snakelike eyes and creepy smile, the face that she wouldn't be forgetting in a hurry.

"Parvati!"

Someone was calling her name, she tried to yell back but found that her voice wasn't working. Theodore reached out and slapped her face and she screamed, finally finding her voice. He then waved his wand and conjured a bucket of water out of nowhere and began to tip it all over her. She yelled out in pain as the cold water hit her cuts and bruises.

"Parvati, wake up!"

Parvati's eyes flew open and the screams cut off abruptly as she shut her mouth. She saw Padma standing above her with a bowl from the kitchen, having just doused her sister in water to wake her up. She looked petrified, but that was nothing to how Parvati felt. Padma crouched down next to her, worry etched into her face. Parvati's eyes were open and frightened and as soon as Padma put a comforting hand on her shoulder, Parvati began to cry.

Padma's expression softened as she pulled Parvati into a hug and Parvati buried her face in her sister's shoulder, glad to have a dark place that she knew her demons couldn't come and find her.

"Hey, it's okay." Padma said, "It wasn't real, you're here and nobody is going to hurt you ever again."

"But it happened!" Parvati sobbed, "It still happened and that's the worst part about it all."

"Yeah," Padma said, "It happened, but it's not happening anymore and it will never happen again."

"Y-you can't pr-promise that!" Parvati said, "L-look at wh-what ha-happened to P-Pansy, s-he's d-dead! Th-that could've been me, Padma!"

"Yes, but it wasn't." Padma said, soothingly, stroking Parvati's hair comfortingly, "It wasn't you. You're safe now."

Parvati couldn't find any more words to describe how she was feeling, so she just buried her head back into Padma's shoulder and sobbed. This was short lived however, as at that very moment, Dean burst through the front door, a panicked look on his face.

"Padma, have you seen the paper?" He asked, looking around fearfully for the two girls before his eyes landed on them sitting on the kitchen floor, with Parvati leaning into Padma's shoulder, crying. "_Fuck_." Dean whispered at the sight, "She saw it didn't she?"

Padma nodded, tears in her eyes, "I tried to hide it but she picked it out of the trash."

Dean ran a hand through his head as he dumped his bag with Theodore Nott seniors files in it onto the ground, "Okay," He said, "Help me get her onto the couch and we'll give her a sleeping potion, she doesn't look like she slept well last night."

"I-I'm fine D-Dean," Parvati tried, "I'm really f-fine."

"Parvati, you need rest," Padma said, helping her up off of the ground and over to the couch and laying her down.

"I'm okay," Parvati insisted, wiping her eyes, "I just – bad memories." She said, cutting herself off in the middle of the sentence.

Dean reached his hand out for her to take, knowing that she had an issue with touching after what had happened. To his surprise she took it in her own and clasped it there, tears leaking out of her eyes as she squeezed them shut. Dean stood up from his couch and without taking his hand out of Parvati's grip, moved over to sit next to her. They sat there like that for a while, their hands intertwined, Parvati staring into the distance as if there was a duel going on somewhere that Padma and Dean couldn't see that she was very interested in.

The silence was eventually broken by a tapping on the window.

The three of them looked up to see a tawny owl sitting on the windowsill, a letter in its' beak. Padma jumped up immediately and let the owl in, with the quick explanation that it was Terry's owl. Dean and Parvati watched as she read the letter and her face drained of colour.

"I've got to go," She whispered hoarsely.

Dean stood up abruptly, his hand still staying in Parvati's grip, "What's happened?" he asked as Padma rushed to the front door, grabbing her handbag and picking up Isaac on the way out.

"I've got to be with him," Padma sobbed as she ran out of the door without a second glance. Dean looked down at Parvati and gave her a quizzical look. Parvati shrugged slightly.

"She'll have to come back and explain," Dean said, gesturing to all of Padma's things that were scattered around the apartment, "She can't just dump all of her stuff on us."

"Dean," Parvati whimpered and all thought of Padma was forgotten as Dean sat back down next to her, both of his hands encasing hers, "Can I trust you to tell me the truth?"

"Of course," Dean said, "You can always count on me, Parvati."

"Do you really believe that I'm safe from him?" she asked.

Dean didn't hesitate, "Of course," Dean said, "He's locked away, for good."

"are you sure?"

"Locked him up myself,"

Parvati's face seemed to relax and her eyes, which had been screwed up as she tried to control her emotions, opened widely again and as Dean looked into them, he could see every emotion that Parvati was feeling. Her eyes, that was where her demons hid. Every demon that had ever plagued her nightmares hid inside her eyes. He could see pain, sadness, suffering, stress; all of the things that he didn't want Parvati to have to suffer through, that he didn't want anyone to have to suffer through.

"Can I hug you?" Dean asked and Parvati nodded. Dean drew her into his arms and hugged her tightly, his chin resting on the top of her head, "Are you okay?"

"No," Parvati said softly.

"What's wrong?" Dean asked, "Talk to me."

"I think that its sick that they keep doing this. Forcing people into marrying people that they don't want to and so far they've had two pretty nasty outcomes, but they keep arranging marriages. They keep doing it. It's like they have no care in the world for the people that they're pairing together, just as long as they have children…. Well they got their fucking wish." Parvati said bitterly, her hands moving over her swollen stomach. At six months pregnant, she had finally decided what she wanted to do with the baby once it came. She would raise it, she would make sure that it didn't become a bad person and she would give it the best upbringing that she possibly could.

"You don't have to keep the baby, you know." Dean said, "You can give it up for adoption."

"No," Parvati said, "I want to keep it, It'll give me something physical to hold onto about what happened, just so I know it's not my imagination making things up."

"But wouldn't that be better?" Dean asked.

"No," Parvati said, shaking her head, "I want to know that it's real. Knowing it actually happened is better than thinking it a figment of your imagination."

"I guess that's fair enough," Dean said, shrugging, "Parvati, I've been meaning to ask you something for ages now and I just haven't got the chance."

"Mmm," she said, her eyelids starting to droop as the rise and fall of Dean's chest gradually rocked her to sleep.

"I was just wondering, because when this baby is born, it's not going to have a father, and I was wondering if you wanted it to have one, because I'd be more than willing to step in as an honorary father."

Parvati's eyes flew open, "You would really do that?" she asked, craning her neck to look up at Dean.

"Of course," Dean said, "Only if you want me to though."

"I would _love _you to," Parvati said and smiled as a huge smile came across Dean's face, "I feel safe with you." She muttered as she leant back into his chest, "I feel like I'm in a fortress and nobody can ever get to me."

Dean smiled, "I will never let anyone hurt you, Parvati."

"Will you promise to do the same for my baby?" she mumbled, her eyes shut now.

"Of course," Dean said, "I will always protect you and any of your family."

"Thank you," Parvati whispered before her breathing became steady and rhythmic; she was asleep. Dean planted a kiss on her head before moving out from behind her and laying her head down on the pillow, "I will never let any harm befall you," he whispered into her ear, "because no matter what, I will always love you."

* * *

**AN: This chapter was loosely based off the song **_**Demons**_** by Imagine Dragons. If you haven't listened to Imagine Dragons, go and listen to them right now, they're amazing. **

**I also have four spots left in my 'Year of Gift Giving' project. If you would like a gift, then all of the information is on my profile underneath the heading 'GIVING BACK IN 2013' I'd love it if you could help me fill up my remaining spots.**

**I'd love it if you could leave a review :) **

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	16. Confessions

Chapter 16  
Confessions

Dean squinted at the harsh sunlight that bored through the uncurtained windows, forcing him to wake up. He knew one thing for certain, and that was that his neck was extremely stiff and incredibly sore. As Dean's eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed that he was slumped against the arm of the couch with Parvati's head in his lap.

_Well,_ Dean thought,_ that explains the sore neck_. Sitting up and gingerly rubbing his neck so that it felt marginally better than what it had before, but still aching considerably, he looked down at Parvati. She was as she had fallen asleep last night, her head in his lap and one arm wrapped around him, the other around her stomach and there was a slight smile on her sleeping face. Dean wanted to kiss her then and there but knew that they were still just friends to her, that and it would wake her up.

But were they still just friends? Dean wondered, He had asked what he had been wanting to ask since Parvati got pregnant and Parvati had said yes, would anyone else say yes if he asked them and they purely considered each other as friends? Dean didn't think so. There was a small, tiny glimmer of hope that Parvati was possibly covering up a crush on him. Why would she approve of him asking to be the father of her child if she wasn't? Dean ran his hands through his hair in confusion; Parvati was giving him the biggest mixed signals in the history of mixed signals.

Sighing in exasperation, Dean gently shifted Parvati's head off of his lap and stood up. She shifted slightly and mumbled something before falling back into sleep again. Dean smiled down at her before turning and walking over to the desk by the door where he pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill and with a heavy heart, wrote the words he never would've guessed he would need to say.

_Seamus,_

_It's been forever! How are you? Sorry I haven't been keeping in touch. There was this whole fiasco with Parvati as soon as you moved out and I've been really busy with work. How about you? How's it going with Lavender?_

_Now I really hate to do this because remember I told you that I knew girls inside out? Well, I don't know all girls inside out. Parvati just gave me the biggest mixed signals of my life and I don't know what it means, help?_

_You can come over today if you want to, we're not doing anything and Parvati hasn't seen Lavender for ages. _

_Dean._

Dean got up and walked over to the window, opening it as quietly as was possible and whistled softly for his owl, Owen, who stayed out of the house most of the time because muggles thought that it was weird for people to keep owls as pets.

Owen fluttered down from a nearby tree where he was roosting and nipped Dean's finger affectionately before sticking out his leg.

"Take this to Seamus for me, okay?" Dean said, stroking Owen's feathery head. Owen nipped Dean's finger again before turning around and taking flight. Dean watched the tawny fly away over the city until he was a tiny dot in the sky, drawing further and further away. Dean almost regretted Seamus moving to Reading to live with Lavender, they hardly saw each other now and Dean didn't want to admit it to himself, but he did miss Seamus. They had seen each other nearly every day for almost ten years and to have not seen him in such a long time made Dean feel as though he was missing a part of himself.

_Okay, enough nostalgia_. Dean scolded himself, moving away from the window and to the kitchen where he started to prepare breakfast to take his mind of everything. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful and succeeded in burning the toast quite severely.

Sighing with frustration, Dean waved his wand at the fridge and then the cupboards and a bowl, a packet of Shreddies and some milk flew out and landed on the bench. At least he couldn't burn cereal. It hadn't been a very ideal start to the day so far.

Half way through his second bowl, he heard Parvati start to stir where she was lying and Dean immediately jumped up and walked over to her just as there was a tapping on the window. Dean looked up to see Owen standing there with a piece of parchment in his beak.

That had been _fast!_

He changed course right in the middle of his path and managed to trip over Padma's mattress, which he still hadn't packed up from last night when she had left. Swearing loudly as he hit the ground he heard a small giggle from behind him and when he finally sorted out which way was up, he saw Parvati looking at him from her position on the couch with a smirk on her face.

"It takes major skills to do that, Dean," she said sarcastically as Dean picked himself up and groaned.

"Oh hush," Dean joked, throwing her a playful glare, "I'm clumsy okay, what of it?"

"It's cute," she said with a smile, "Reminds me of when Isaac was trying to walk and he kept tripping over nothing."

Dean smiled at the thought. He had noticed how happy Parvati was when Isaac was around, how she seemed to calm down and her expression seemed to soften and she became more relaxed and carefree when she was playing with Isaac. Dean was almost sure that having her nephew here when she was going through such a tough time had helped her more than having himself or Padma there. It was like when people in the muggle world lost a child, they were given a dog to take their mind off it and fill the void that the deceased child had left and it was proven to help them. Maybe Isaac had been Parvati's void filler.

"You're going to be a great mother," Dean said before he could stop himself. He knew that he shouldn't mention anything about the baby or her being a mother unless she brought it up first because as far as he knew, she had never wanted children in the first place. Parvati smiled stiffly.

"I'm going to try my best," she said with a soft smile, "That's all I can do, right? Try my best?"

Dean smiled at her as he walked towards her and sat down, "You _will_ do your best. I can tell."

Parvati's smile widened, "Well you'll help me won't you? Being the baby's honorary father and all?"

Dean took Parvati's hand in his again, "Of course I will," he said sincerely, "In fact, I would consider myself to be its actual dad, not just an honorary one."

Dean realised what he had said just seconds after he had said it and felt his cheeks blush scarlet. Why had he said that?! He'd really gone and blown it now. Parvati withdrew her hand from his quickly, as though she had been burned and her smile turned into an expression of stress and her brow knitted into a frown almost immediately.

"Shit," Dean said, "Parvati, I'm sorry, that did not come out the way I wanted it to."

"I- Dean," Parvati stammered and Dean could see that she was having trouble breathing as her breaths became faster and faster, Dean knew that if she couldn't control it that he would have to do something, and that might be a little harder now that he had so stupidly gone and told Parvati that he would not only like to help her raise a child, but he would like to raise the child as his own, as if they were together or something.

"Please don't hate me Parvati," he said, "I just had a moment of stupidness and I didn't know what to say, please. It didn't come out the right way!"

"Dean," Parvati said and Den could see her breathing slowing down to normal again, "I want to make something clear," she leaned forward and Dean did too, hoping against hope that she was going to press her lips against his, but all she did was whisper in his ear, "We are just friends, nothing more, nothing less, friends that always have each other's backs. You're helping me with my baby because you have my back and I can count on you."

Dean nodded quickly, trying not to let his disappointment show on his face. He was so confused right now. Parvati was the queen giver of mixed signals.

It was then that Dean realised why they had come to this discussion in the first place; his tripping over of Padma's mattress. He turned around to see Owen still waiting patiently at the window, persisting his constant tapping that Dean had learned to tune out until someone collected his mail. Dean stood up and opened the window, letting Owen flutter inside and drop the mail. Surprisingly there were two letters in the tawny owl's beak. Dean picked them up and unfolded the first as he stroked Owen's head. It was from Seamus.

_Dean,_

_I'm good thanks mate! You should write more! Everything is going fine with Lav and we'd love to come see you today. Lavender keeps going on about how bored out of her brain she is so I put the idea to her and she seemed to love it. We have something to tell you both too. _

_Hate to say this man, but Parvati's been through a lot, do you really think it's time for you to want to make a move? Also, it might help if you told me what these mixed signals were so I could figure it out. _

_Hate to say this man, but Parvati's been through a lot, do you really think it's time for you to want to make a move? Also, it might help if you told me what these mixed signals were so I could figure it out and help you?_

_We were going to come over today as a matter of fact as a surprise for you and Parvati but you caught us on the way here. We took muggle transport because Lav has this condition where she can't apparate. _

_See you soon,_

_Seamus. _

Dean's first thought was about how weird Seamus would've looked writing a letter on a muggle bus with a tawny owl flying outside the window, he laughed at the thought; Seamus was never a very subtle person, there were probably a lot of confused muggles around.

His second was the fact that Seamus and Lavender were going to be coming over in a matter of hour. Dean swore loudly and dropped the letter as he realised that the apartment was a complete mess. Waving his wand at Padma's belongings on the ground and levitating them neatly so that they rested on top of his cupboard that held all of his linen. He then set about putting cleaning charms on the rest of the kitchen so it didn't look like a hippogriff had tried to make breakfast that morning instead of a human with very low skills in making toast.

"What are you doing?" Parvati asked, watching him with interest.

"Seamus is coming over," Dean said, moving back out of the way of a flying plate and knocking over the packet of cereal, sending Shreddies everywhere. He swore loudly again as Parvati jumped up, her eyes wide with surprise.

"Seamus is coming over?" she asked, "With Lavender?"

"Yeah," Dean said as he waved his wand at the Shreddies which flew back into the packet and then into the cupboard. It was then the Dean realised why Parvati was looking so shocked. The last time she had seen Lavender was before her marriage; sure, Lavender had come to see Parvati in the hospital once or twice, but she hadn't seen her since she had gotten out, Dean could only imagine what was going through Parvati's head at the moment.

"Hey," He said, walking over to her and putting his hands on both of her shoulders, telling himself mentally that it was definitely something that a friend would do, "Don't panic, you're still beautiful."

Parvati opened her mouth to say something, before her face relaxed into a smile, "Thank you," she whispered, putting her arms around his waist and hugging him. Dean felt his heart fill with butterflies at her touch and wrapped his arms around her in return.

"I have no problems speaking the truth," Dean smiled. Parvati's smile widened.

"You're the best friend a girl could ever ask for," she smiled, "I don't think you realise how much I appreciate everything that you're doing for me."

"It's nothing," Dean said, "You've been through a lot and I want you to know that you can count on me whenever you need me."

"And you can count on me because I can count on you," Parvati said, "It's about time I started returning the favour."

"Hey," Dean said, "Parvati, how about we wait until after this baby comes. You can stay here as long as you want after its born."

Dean bit his tongue just before he said _you can even live here forever if you want_.

"Thank you," Parvati whispered, "Can I tell you something?"

"Anything," Dean said.

"I'm really scared," she said, "Scared that I won't be a good parent, scared that I won't have enough money to support the child; just scared in general."

"It's okay to be scared," Dean said, "It's what makes us human."

"You know what else makes us human?" Parvati said, "Pain. It's always there, hurting you and making you upset. That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt."

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but at that very moment, Seamus and Lavender burst through the door, shouting their greetings at Dean and Parvati.

A smile broke out across Dean's face when he saw his best mate and his girlfriend.

"Hey, Seamus, Lavender, how are you guys?" he said jovially, shaking Seamus' hand and kissing Lavender on the cheek, "It's been forever!"

"Hey there mate," Seamus said with a grin as he put his arm around Lavender who had clapped a hand to her mouth upon seeing Parvati standing behind Dean in the kitchen. Dean's heart began to beat faster and harder as he realised that he hadn't thought to forewarn Seamus and Lavender about Parvati's surprise pregnancy.

He cleared his throat, "So, do you want tea? Or shall we go to Diagon Alley? I need to go there anyway, I'm almost out of sleeping potion ingredients and we've got to go and get Parvati a new wand."

Seamus laughed slightly, "Diagon Alley it is," he said, "But please, let's take the knight bus this time, those muggle buses are painfully slow."

Dean laughed before turning to Parvati who was looking apprehensive, "You right to go to Diagon Alley?"

Parvati smiled nervously under Lavender's shocked gaze, "Yeah," she said, "I'll just get dressed."

* * *

"Never again," Lavender said as the four of them got off the Knight Bus fifteen minutes later at the Leakey Cauldron , "No way, those Muggle buses may be ten times slower but that Knight Bus is a hazard!"

"Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you there, Lavender," Dean said. He could feel bruises forming on his butt, shoulder and back from where he had fallen off his seat and slammed into the opposite wall.

"I need a coffee," Lavender said, taking off inside the Leakey Cauldron, "I don't care that it's disgusting, it's what I feel like right now."

"Well, you're not going to find it in there!" Seamus called after her, shaking his head, "You're going to have to go into Muggle London to find it!"

"For crying out loud," Lavender said, turning around and walking back to them, "Can't they sell it in there, it would make my life much easier."

"Are you joking?" Seamus said, "That shit is disgusting! If they put it in the Leakey Cauldron then they'd lose a load of money on stocking it. Nobody actually likes it."

"Okay I'll give you a point for that one," Lavender said before turning to Parvati, "Come on, we'll go find a place to sit down and have something to eat. I haven't seen you in ages."

Parvati started to shake her head, but felt Dean's hand on her arm, encouraging her to go with Lavender. She didn't feel safe outside. She hadn't felt safe outside since everything had happened with Theodore. She felt as though she was more vulnerable in the streets than she was in Dean's flat, which was saying something as she once had been attacked there.

"Come on," Lavender said, smiling at her as she started to walk off. Parvati looked up at Dean who nodded encouragingly at her, the look in his eyes telling her that Lavender wouldn't let any harm befall her. Parvati hitched a smile onto her face and walked off after Lavender.

"I'll see you in about an hour okay Lav?" Seamus called after her. She wheeled around and called back,

"Not if I see you first," and blew a kiss at him. Parvati smiled at the antics between the two of them.

"You two are a great couple," she remarked, "I wish I could be in a relationship like yours."

"Well," Lavender teased, "There's always Dean."

Parvati felt herself clam up as she thought of all of the romantic advances that Dean had unwillingly made on her since she had been living there, despite her being adamant that they just remained friends. She had found that she didn't mind it. She liked them almost, it was as if she had never lost her feelings for Dean after they had broken up in sixth year.

"No way," Parvati laughed, "He's just a friend."

"Oh come on," Lavender said, "Don't lapse into the friend zone again. It's got to be you two."

"We broke up," Parvati shrugged.

"Doesn't mean you can't get back together,"

"I'm pregnant,"

"I noticed."

"He's my ex, don't you think that's a bit weird?"

"Why are you being so adamant that you don't like him as a romantic partner?" Lavender said, stopping in her tracks and turning to look at Parvati.

"Because he still fancies me!" Parvati said, "He wants to get back together, I can tell."

"So let him," Lavender said, "It's what you want too, isn't it?"

"No!" Parvati said, "I like him as a friend, nothing more."

"Parvati you are the most terrible liar in the world," Lavender said, "Come on, tell me what the real reason is."

"It's because I'm not ready!" Parvati said, raising her voice a little higher than was necessary, "I'm not ready for a relationship right now Lav! I'm trying to recover from what happened before, I'm trying to battle the images that come to me every time I close my eyes, I'm pregnant and I'm trying not to think of what's going to happen when this baby comes. I didn't even want it in the first place!"

"So you do fancy him!" Lavender said, her tone triumphant. Parvati shot her a glare.

"Seriously, Lavender? I tell you everything that I'm suffering from in one go and the thing you take from it is the fact that I really do fancy Dean."

"Well it's true," Lavender said, in a matter of fact tone, "Admit it."

"Okay!" Parvati said, "I do still fancy him… just a little bit."

"I knew it," Lavender said, "It's always been you two."

"Now stop," Parvati said, "Like I said, I'm not ready; you have to promise not to tell Dean."

"Your secret is safe with me Par," Lavender smiled, "Also, while we're telling secrets, I figured I might tell you that I'm pregnant as well."

"What?" Parvati said, raising an eyebrow.

"Three months," she smiled. Parvati forced herself to beam and hug her best friend and fawn over what she was going to name the baby, but deep down she was hiding a burning jealousy because Lavender got to choose when she had her first child and Parvati didn't.

* * *

**AN: Sorry that this is so late; My grandpa had to go to A&E because he fainted and sprained his ankle pretty badly so I was at a hospital all day and was reminded of how bad they smell.**

**I still have four spots left in my year of gifting if anyone wants them. All you have to do is PM me with your favourite pairings and I'll assign you to a week and you'll get a fic in that week of the year. **

**I hope you all like this chapter and I would really love it if you could leave me a comment in the box below :) I love feedback. **

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	17. Changes

Chapter 17  
Changes

Confusion.

That was the first thing that came to mind for Dean when he looked into Parvati's eyes when they arrived back at their apartment with Seamus and Lavender after a day spent in Diagon Alley and muggle London. He didn't blame her really; he himself was confused, like the reason as to why Padma had received a letter and had suddenly run out of the house to be with Terry. He assumed that Parvati was confused about that too but he knew that there was something deeper than just what was on the surface that was troubling her.

"Thanks for coming over today mate," Dean said with a grin, turning to Seamus, "It was a blast."

"Yeah," Seamus said, holding out his hand for Dean to shake, "We should do it again sometime."

"Sometime soon," Lavender said with a smile as she said goodbye to Parvati with a hug.

"Yeah," Dean said absent mindedly as he watched Parvati try to look as genuine as she could with her smile and hide the fact that she was still not really comfortable with people touching her, "Soon."

He kissed Lavender's cheek as Seamus shook Parvati's hand. He was glad that Seamus had enough tact to know that she probably didn't want to be kissed, even if it was purely friendly. With a few last goodbyes, they were gone into the night and Dean found himself wondering if Seamus was going to force Lavender to get onto the Knight Bus to get back to Reading instead of taking Muggle transport.

He flicked his wand at the kettle and water began to boil instantly.

"Tea?" he asked Parvati as she sat down on the couch, exhausted.

"Thanks," she said and Dean could hear something different in her voice. Sometimes he wondered how he knew so much about her. He could see right through her façades and the layers she put up to fool people that she had it all together. Dean knew that Parvati had never been all together. Even in their Hogwarts days Dean had seen it. She was like a coconut; tough on the outside and not much could get through the skin, but on the inside she was a mess and only he and Padma had been able to get through to the mess and try to help clean it up.

The kettle finished boiling and Dean poured the hot water into the two blue cups that he had bought today at Diagon Alley and took them over to the couch, setting one down on the coffee table in front of Parvati.

"What's up?" He asked, leaning back into the soft leather and looking across at Parvati with a smile.

"The sky," Parvati said sarcastically as she stared out of the window at the stars that were slowly starting to appear in the black blanket of sky.

Dean looked up, "Well, technically it's the ceiling," he said in a matter of fact tone. Parvati rolled her eyes.

"Well if you want to get _technical_. It's Mrs Barton's house," Parvati said.

"Then the ceiling," Dean grinned.

"And then the sky." Parvati finished.

"Three things that are up, is there anything that's down?" Dean asked, trying to pose the question to Parvati in a different light.

"Yeah," she muttered, "Three houses and a Parvati."

"Why?" Dean asked her, his eyebrow raised in question.

Parvati shook her head and looked back out of the window. Dean touched her arm ever so gently, just enough so that she knew he wasn't going to accept his question being ignored.

"You can talk to me, Parvati," Dean said quietly.

"Not about this," she said softly and Dean looked at her quizzically.

"Why not?" he asked, feeling slightly hurt.

"Because you won't understand," she said.

"Well," Dean said, thinking that it was fair enough, "Then help me to."

Parvati sighed again, "I don't know Dean," she said with a hint of sadness in her voice, "Everything is just so upside down for me now. I used to think I had a firm grip on what was happening and who was with who and where I was going with my life but now I don't have a single clue."

"Go on," Dean said when she stopped to look at him.

"It's just that this baby will be here in less than three months and I have nothing planned, nothing for it to wear, nowhere for it to sleep, no clue on how to raise it and Lavender is pregnant too and listening to her go on and on about how she can't wait for the baby to come and how Seamus is going to be such a good father to it and how she's already got a crib and nappies and a list of names picked out and all I can think about is how unenthusiastic I am about this situation and how its wrong not to be excited when there's a baby coming and it didn't help that she kept pestering me about if I fancied you or not and when I relented and told her that I did she didn't even listen to anything that I told her along with it and –"

"What?" Dean asked in complete shock. Parvati clapped her hands to her mouth.

"Dean, I didn't mean- It just slipped out. Oh god," she said, putting her head in her hands in embarrassment.

Dean swallowed slowly. She had just confessed to still fancying him. It was by accident but still. She had just made all of his dreams come true with one bout of rambling. She still fancied him.

Dean laughed and Parvati looked up from her hands, giving him a confused look.

"What?" she asked.

"Why are you embarrassed?" Dean asked, "It's not like I don't feel the same way. You know that Par."

Parvati blushed, "It's just not the time, the place or the situation I pictured telling you in."

Dean smiled, reaching out and taking her hand, "So," he said with a smile.

"So, what?" Parvati asked nervously.

"Do you want to be my girlfriend, again?" Dean asked carefully, his heart pounding just the way it had when he had asked her out for the first time in fifth year.

"Dean, I-" she said, biting her lip, "I do still fancy you, I really do but I don't think I'll be able to commit to a relationship right now, I'm stressed out and confused and everything is changing and dropping out from under my feet and I feel like I'm about to fall at any minute. I don't think I could deal with it right now… I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Dean said, "I get it, you're worried about this baby and its future and your future and I'm going to help you. You know what, first thing in the morning we'll go down to that Muggle bookstore and buy some pregnancy books if it makes you feel more prepared. It's almost time, Parvati and I will be here for you."

Parvati smiled as tears of happiness welled in her eyes, "Every day you remind me of how much I love you," she smiled, "I honestly don't know what I'd do if you weren't here. You saved me from Theodore, you came to the hospital every day, you took me into your home, you held me when I had nightmares, you've looked after me through this whole ordeal and I don't even know if you know how grateful I am to you for that."

"I love you," Dean said simply, "and if there comes a time when you are ready, just know that I'll be waiting for you."

"Thank you," Parvati whispered, a tear spilling down her face, "For understanding."

"Thank you for helping me understand," Dean said, clasping her hand between his and smiling at her. He knew how much she loved him; he could see it in her eyes and he understood what she wanted to do, he understood why she didn't want a relationship with him now. He knew that she would be ready one day and he knew that when that day came, he would be the happiest man alive.

* * *

Everything was changing. That she was sure of. Her feelings were changing, her life was changing her body was changing and Parvati was finding it hard to cope. She had never coped well with change, especially unnecessary change and the change that she was undergoing for this baby that she didn't even want in the first place was completely unnecessary.

Then there was Dean. She couldn't keep her mind off him and now that both of them had their feelings out in the open, she felt more vulnerable than ever. She knew that Dean would never hurt her but it didn't stop her from feeling slightly sceptical about a relationship. Her mind wasn't ready for a relationship, but she knew that her body certainly was. She wasn't sure if it was hormones or genuine attraction, but she always felt her stomach flutter whenever he touched her. It was as if the child growing inside her wanted Dean for a father, it was as if it knew that she wanted him to be the father as well.

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked across at Dean who was sleeping soundly on the couch opposite her. She smiled at him, her eyes stinging with tears as she watched him sleep. She wanted to be with him so badly but she knew that she wasn't ready. She was still having troubles getting to sleep and it was as if the baby could sense that because it became increasingly active late at night whenever she was trying to sleep.

She thought of Lavender, and how excited she had been about being pregnant. Parvati wasn't remotely excited but she was glad. She was glad to have a piece of her experience to hang onto other than the scars that marked her body because it made her feel like she was really alive and that she would have to keep living to bring this baby up right, which she was determined to do.

She sighed and readjusted her pillow, hoping to grab some sleep before the morning came. It was then that she noticed a dark shape sitting outside of the window, she was just able to see it through the curtains. Her heartbeat picked up and she immediately started to sweat. What if it was him, what if he had broken out of Azkaban and was waiting for the right moment to strike. She could feel her breath coming in quick gasps as she refused to take her eye off the shape. She reached for her new wand which she had stowed in her pillowcase and readied it. She whispered a spell and the curtains flew open to reveal whatever the shape was.

Parvati instantly felt stupid when she saw that it was just an owl. The fear dropped from her body and her heart started to slow to a normal beat as her breathing returned to normal. Rolling her eyes at her own paranoia, she pulled herself up and over to the window. Once she had opened it, the owl fluttered inside, dropped the letter and immediately soared up to roost on the top of the kitchen cupboards. Parvati recognised it instantly as Padma's owl. _Finally_, she thought as she ripped open the envelope that the letter was sealed in.

_Parvati,_

_I'm so sorry about the other day and my sudden departure. Terry got into a duel at a pub a few nights ago and had something particularly nasty done to his nether regions which I'd rather not talk about but he's fine now. Yesterday he was in a critical condition because of blood loss and stuff but his family got him moved to St Mungo's so that he could recover quicker. Terry's brother Nathan only told me that Terry was in a 'life threatening condition' which is why I left so quickly but I can be back with you and Dean in a week if you still want me there. _

_Love, Padma_

Parvati rolled her eyes at the letter. That was so typical of Terry to get into a bar fight and have damage done to one of the most precious regions of his body and for his family to blow it all out of proportion. She was glad that Padma had told her though, she had been quite worried since she had just run out of the apartment yesterday. She quickly pulled a bit of parchment of the desk beside her and by the light of the moon, she began to write a response.

_Padma,_

_Glad to hear you're okay and that Terry is too. I've been spending a lot of time with Dean since you've been gone (which is really only a day but anyway) and we met up with Lavender and Seamus earlier today and Lavender and I went and got that foul tasting muggle stuff called Coffee because she was craving it. She made me spill a lot of stuff that I didn't necessarily want to talk about. Like the fact that I still fancy Dean and how I don't want to be in a relationship because I know I'm not ready. I accidentally let it slip to him when I was talking to him about why I was confused and he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said not now but maybe sometime in the future. Do you think I did the right thing? He seems fine with it but I'm not sure, I can't read him like I can read the other boys. He's a padlocked book instead of an open one. It's all okay here; you can stay with Terry as long as you need to. I'm fine. _

_Love, Parvati._

She folded up the letter and tucked it under the paper weight on the desk. She would send it in the morning when the owl woke up and decided to come down from the ceiling.

A smile on her face, she walked back over to the couch and with one last look at Dean, lay down and fell asleep almost instantaneously, feeling as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from her shoulders.

* * *

**AN: Short authors note this time because it's midnight and I have to get up at 8:30. **

**I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I would love it if you could leave me a review! It doesn't take long :)**

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	18. Secrets

Chapter 18  
Secrets

"What do you think of this one, Parvati?" Lavender asked, holding up a blue jumpsuit for her to scrutinise as the two of them browsed in the large department store down the road from Dean's apartment.

Parvati shrugged, giving the same answer that she had given to every piece of baby clothing that Lavender had suggested to her over the past hour. Lavender sighed in frustration.

"Come on Par!" she said, pulling on Parvati's arm to get her attention, which had slipped to the trees outside that were covered in a thin layer of snow. It was odd for it to be snowing in September but the weather had become more and more erratic lately without much explanation. From what Dean had told her, it was because of something that muggles called 'global warming' but she hadn't paid much attention to that; Dean tended to ramble for hours about the muggle problems that his parents had told him about.

"What?" Parvati asked, a slight note of anger creeping into her tone as she wrenched her arm out of Lavender's grip.

"Calm down," Lavender said, slightly taken aback, "Jeez, what is with you today?"

"I don't want to do this right now," Parvati said angrily, reiterating what she had repeated five times before Lavender had dragged her down here.

"Parvati, your baby is due in a few weeks, you have to have something for it to wear!" Lavender said, trying her best to be patient with her best friend.

"I know, but I don't want to do this right now!" Parvati protested.

"You haven't wanted to do this for three months!" Lavender said, "Hell, you haven't even picked out a name yet!"

"I don't want to!" Parvati all but yelled, "It's too much to take in!"

"Oh, so you can't even open up a book of names and pick one that you might like?" Lavender said, immediately firing up.

"No, I can't!" Parvati yelled, "I don't want to think about that right now."

Lavender let out an especially frustrated yell, "Well guess what, girlfriend, you're going to have to think about it right now because you can't keep that baby inside of you forever. At some point during the next week, you're going to pop and there's nothing you can do about it and I'm trying to help you here and all you're doing is making it hard for me, I'm pregnant too you know!."

Parvati snapped. "Well I'm sorry!" she screamed, tears welling in her eyes, "I'm fucking sorry that you're so damn happy with fucking Seamus and that the two of you are engaged and that you've got all your fucking baby stuff sorted because you're so excited for your baby to come. I'm sorry for making your life so fucking hard because you had to drag yourself out here when you're _pregnant_ to 'help' me. I'm sorry that you have to put up with me!" her voice was coated with sarcasm.

"Don't you get all sassy with me, Parvati," Lavender spat angrily, "All you've done since you got attacked by Theodore Nott is sit on your arse and whine all day and I'm sick of it! I don't like being on the receiving end of your-"

Parvati cut across her, her voice dangerously quiet and every syllable was laced with venom, "You don't know what it's like, do you? To be trapped inside your own home, to have a man in the house that rapes and beats you daily and when you try to escape, you get locked in a cellar, beaten and raped and left for dead. Do you think that that would be fun, Lavender?" Parvati spat the other girl's name out as if she had just put a particularly sour grape in her mouth.

"I-" Lavender said, taken aback.

"You wouldn't, would you? And have you ever stopped to fucking think that I didn't want this?" she asked, pointing at the bulge that was her stomach right now.

"Parvati, stop."

"Did you ever think to use that daft brain of yours and see that the reason why I don't want to do this is because I am still coming to terms with the fact that I do not want this child, yet I can't give it up because despite the fact that it is _his_, it's also mine too?"

"You're just going to get us kicked out!" Lavender said as Parvati walked closer and closer to her, taking one step with every word and it was then that Parvati realised that there were people staring at them with shocked looks on their faces. Parvati didn't care, they were muggles, what did they know about any of this?

"I don't care," Parvati snarled, "What will it take to make you see that I can't help what's happened? You wanted that damn baby and I didn't, but I have to keep it because nobody had the good sense to tell me that I was pregnant, and when someone did, It was too late for an abortion. Now if you're still going to stand there and say to me that all I'm doing is being a whiny brat, then I think you and Seamus can toddle off home."

Lavender was speechless. Parvati could tell that she hadn't known much about how Parvati had gotten pregnant, only that it wasn't the result of love and she did feel slightly bad for treating Lavender the way that she had, but that guilt was washed away the moment she felt someone tap her on the shoulder. She whirled around quickly, a retort for the shop assistant already at her lips, but what she found when she turned was not a shop assistant. She saw a girl who looked barely older than fifteen standing with a huge, bulging belly like Parvati's on the arm of an older woman who looked like her mother. The girl had tears in her eyes.

"Hello," Parvati said, uncertainly.

"I just wanted to say," whispered the girl, "That I know how you feel."

Parvati felt her heart break as she looked at the girl, knowing exactly what the girl was saying; she didn't want the baby that she was carrying either and it wasn't until Parvati spoke again, did she realise that she was crying.

"I'm Parvati," Parvati said softly, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve and reaching the other hand out to the girl.

"Emily," the girl said, sniffing slightly as she too wiped her own eyes, "I'm sorry for disturbing you."

"No," Parvati said slowly, "it's okay." She looked at the girl's mother, who had a pleading look in her eyes. Parvati raised an eyebrow at her.

"Will you talk to Emily for me?" the woman whispered. Parvati had nodded before the woman could explain why. Parvati felt like she needed to talk to someone who had been through what she had been through, rather than just tell her that everything was going to work out in the end, "Thank you," she said quietly as the attendant showed up, breathless to the scene.

"What's going on here?" she asked through heavy breaths.

"Nothing," Emily's mother said coolly, "Just a little disagreement, we're leaving now."

The attendant pursed her lips as Parvati, Emily and Emily's mother started to walk towards the door of the shop, followed reluctantly by Lavender. Parvati didn't even want to look at Lavender at the moment, but it was a mark of what a good friend she was to Parvati, even when she was annoyed with her that she followed them out.

"Parvati, what are you-" Lavender started but Emily's mother cut across her.

"I think you and I need to have a chat," Emily's mother said disapprovingly, gripping Lavender by the upper arm and tugging her away from Emily and Parvati. Parvati watched them go and sincerely hoped that Emily's mother was giving Lavender an earful.

When she turned back around, it was to see Emily crying.

"What's up?" Parvati said, sitting down on the low brick wall and looking into Emily's eyes.

"Like you don't know," Emily said.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Parvati asked, "Because it's best to do that, keeping it in is toxic."

"Normally I don't," Emily said, "But I feel like I can with you."

"You can talk to me," Parvati said, "But I understand if you don't want to."

Emily was silent and Parvati couldn't help but ask the question that had been burning in her throat since she had seen Emily.

"How old are you, Emily?" Parvati asked.

"Fifteen," she said, confirming Parvati's suspicions, "You?"

"Twenty-three," Parvati said and feeling like she should elaborate slightly, "I was forced into marrying a man that I didn't love, he didn't love me either and as soon as we moved in together he made it clear that he was going to be the dominant one in the relationship. Things only escalated from there." She pulled back her sleeves to show just some of the scars that he had left her with. Emily breathed in sharply.

"I was walking home from school," she said shakily, "He grabbed me… things just escalated from there." Emily pushed back her hair that had been covering a side of her face and all of a sudden, it was Parvati's turn to take a sharp intake of breath as she saw the other half of Emily's face. Her skin was puckered and scarred, she had no eyelid and that half of her face was so deformed that Parvati wasn't sure whether she was wearing a mask or not.

"Oh God," Parvati said instinctively and immediately wished that she hadn't said it, "What happened?"

"Acid," Emily said shortly, "It was dark and he couldn't see what he was doing, so it only got onto this half of my face."

Parvati clapped her hands to her mouth. Whatever she had suffered, whatever pain that Theodore Nott had inflicted on her, it was nothing compared to what this girl had suffered through, nothing compared to the pain that she must've felt when the corrosive liquid had hit her face.

"I'm so sorry," Parvati said, reaching out and taking the younger girl's hand, "I'm so, so sorry."

"There was nothing you could've done," she responded, flicking her fringe back across the scars on her cheek, hiding them completely from view. Emily shook her head a little bit and Parvati knew that she was trying to chase away the memories.

"You don't want to keep your baby either?" Parvati asked, trying to strike up a conversation.

"It's like you said," Emily shrugged, "It's half him but it's also half me. I couldn't bring myself to do that to something that was a part of me. Imagine killing your own kid if it was in this world already, that's essentially what abortion is."

"What did your mum think?" Parvati asked cautiously.

"She said that it was my choice and that she would support me either way. I decided to keep it, and she's supporting me."

Parvati smiled, Emily's mum reminded her of Dean.

"You've got a great mum," Parvati said. Emily smiled.

"I know."

Parvati didn't know what to say next, she was never much good with talking to people she didn't already know, nowadays especially.

"I'm not ready for this," Emily said suddenly, "I'm only fifteen, I'm not old enough or experienced enough."

"There's always adoption?" Parvati suggested, "Then you'll have the baby off your hands."

Emily shook her head, "It'll be a reminder that it actually happened."

Parvati felt the invisible string that already attached her and Emily through sharing a similar experience grow a little bit tighter.

"Me too," she said softly, "Me too."

Emily smiled a smile that Parvati could tell was the most genuine one she had displayed since they had met less than fifteen minutes ago. Emily looked out through the snow covered park, Parvati followed her gaze until she saw that Lavender and Emily's mother were coming back across the crisp snow.

"You should forgive her," Emily said suddenly, "Your friend, she was only trying to help you get ready."

"I know," Parvati said as she and Lavender made eye contact and Lavender started to run as fast as her six month pregnant tummy would allow and Parvati knew that Emily's mum had probably given her a stern talking to. Parvati walked up the stairs that were next to her as quickly as she could and embraced her friend.

"I'm sorry," Lavender whispered into her ear, "I had no idea of what happened really."

"I'm sorry for getting angry at you," Parvati said, "It was out of line."

"No, you were perfectly within your right to yell at me," Lavender said, "You're right, I don't know what it feels like."

"You're a great friend," Parvati said as Emily's mother embraced her daughter.

"So are you," Lavender said, breaking off the hug. Emily cleared her throat.

"Parvati, do you have a phone number?" she asked.

"Yeah," Parvati said, remembering the device in the corner of Dean's apartment that he used to talk to his parents and sisters every so-often, "I don't know the number though, I live with one of my friends."

"Oh," Emily said, reaching into her pocket, "Well, here's my number," she handed Parvati a slip of paper with some numbers on it, "Can you call me please?"

Parvati smiled as she pocketed the paper, "I will," she said. Emily's mother whispered a thank you to Parvati and a good luck to both her and Lavender, which they both wished Emily in return and just as soon as they had met, Emily and Parvati went their separate ways and Parvati couldn't help but feel like a bit of a weight had been lifted off her chest, maybe all she had needed was a person to share the experiences with her.

* * *

"That shit is fucked up," Seamus said as Dean finished reading him the notes on Theodore Nott senior that he had been forced to keep in the cupboard in between towels for almost three months, seeing as Padma hadn't come back to live with them and he couldn't have Parvati finding them and reading them.

"I know," Dean said grimly, "Sorry I had to subject you to that, but I've made all of this research into why Theodore Nott abused Parvati for no real good reason and I've found a really good reason and I need someone else's opinion on what I should do with this."

Seamus nodded for Dean to go on, "If I hand it in to the Wizenagamot, they'll send him to a mental institution, which he can escape from, If I keep it on me, I essentially have someone else's blood on my hands as he rots in Azkaban."

"Don't show it," Seamus said immediately, "Do you want that guy loose in the world?"

"But it's not his fault," Dean said reasonably, "He can't help it if all he's ever known is abuse."

"Fair enough," Seamus said, "But he could do that to other people, it's better that he rot from his crimes."

"And what are his crimes, exactly?" Dean asked, "Doing what he thought was normal in a marriage?"

"No," Seamus said, "I believe they were; rape, sexual abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse and the use of the unforgivable curses."

"Okay, fair enough," Dean said, seeing it from that point of view, "but I still think the right thing to do is turn this information in, he needs a doctor, not a prison sentence."

"Look, Dean, do you want the guy loose in the world or not? He almost killed Parvati, do you want someone like that on the loose? For god 's sake man, use your head." Seamus said.

"No," Dean said, "I most certainly do not want him loose in the world."

"Then there's your answer," Seamus said, raising his arms in conclusion, "You burn the evidence."

"I should probably return it to the ministry," Dean said.

"Where people can find it?" Seamus said incredulously, "You are so bad at hiding evidence remind me never to murder someone with you."

"Well, I'm normally the one trying to solve the crime, in case you didn't notice," Dean said, "and since when do you murder people?"

"It's called a joke, idiot," Seamus said.

"It's called sarcasm, idiot," Dean retorted. Seamus rolled his eyes and aimed a kick in Dean's general direction, being too lazy to get up and kick him properly.

"I want to keep it a bit longer, but I want it out of the house, I don't like keeping secrets from Parvati, she keeps enough from me and I don't want her to constantly try to read me like I have to constantly try to read her."

"Are you two together yet?" Seamus asked tactlessly, jumping from one completely different subject to another.

"What?" Dean yelped, taken aback by the sudden question, "I mean, no," he said, flustered, "she said that she wasn't ready for a relationship, but she does love me."

"Man you were right, she _is_ giving you the biggest mixed signals ever," Seamus said, "I seriously don't understand girls sometimes. Lavender is always changing her moods on me; one moment she's mad at me, the next she wants to cuddle, it's weird mate, I tell you."

"That would be because she's pregnant, Seamus," Dean said, "They're called hormones and they make women crazy."

"I'm trying to make a point about girls being weird!" Seamus said.

There was a creak on the stairs, followed by the sound of two female voices, both clearly belonging to Lavender and Parvati.

"Shit," Dean said, looking at all of the files he had taken from the ministry that were spread out over the table; he definitely wasn't expecting them back this soon. He waved his wand at the pile and it stacked itself neatly in order and zoomed back into the cupboard, between the two towels that were never used for some reason. He had just waved his wand and summoned a packet of biscuits when Parvati and Lavender walked in. As Dean had expected, they were empty handed. He knew that Parvati had no intention of accepting that she needed to buy stuff for the baby until it was actually here. He knew that she was still in denial, even if she told him she wasn't.

"What are you boys up to?" Lavender asked suspiciously at both Seamus and Dean who both had a biscuit half way to their lips.

"Nothing," Dean and Seamus said simultaneously.

"What did you girls do?" Dean asked.

"We talked to some people," Lavender said, "I think Parvati benefited more than me," she said, looking sideways at her friend, "Although I learned that I should learn the true story before I judge someone."

Dean and Seamus looked at each other, their eyes saying the same thing. _Girls are most definitely weird._

* * *

**AN: Holy crap that is the quickest I've ever written one of these chapters. Wow that's ridiculous, 3k words plus in an hour. I've completely worn myself out. Yay me!**

**I just had the best day today. I found out that the Yeti is going to have another little yeti! (a sentence that will only make sense to Nerdfighters) and that Barak Obama is a nerdfighter (or Malia and Sasha are at least) because he told John Green to tell his child not to forget to be awesome! And I got two new Agatha Christie books and I did a lot of exercise and exercise makes me happy apparently….**

**I'd love it if you could spare me the time to review :)**

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	19. Something Good

Chapter 19  
Something Good

Parvati stared at the calendar on the kitchen table. It was two weeks exactly until she was due. Two weeks until she would have a living, breathing human in her arms, two weeks until her life would be changed forever.

She knew that she wasn't ready, she had never been ready. Not before, not now. Having children had never been on her list of things to accomplish. Never, when she was a child had she thought about her future and included having children in it; she just wanted a house, a job and a husband, no children in the picture at all.

But she would have to be ready because that baby was coming ready or not.

She sighed heavily and turned away from the calendar, the sooner that this was over the better. Parvati didn't know what to feel. The last few weeks had been just a sea of confusion for her, she hadn't done anything since her meeting with Emily, if anything all she had done was sit in the house and think more.

Dean had gone out and bought a bassinet and a few sets of clothes the previous day in hopes of enticing her to talk about what she was feeling, but Parvati had ignored him, preferring to sit by herself and think about nothing in particular, anything that would take her mind of the monumental task to come.

"Hey," Dean said, walking out of the bathroom with a smile on his face and making his way over to sit next to Parvati, "You alright?"

"Fine," Parvati said shortly, "Just thinking."

"What about," Dean asked, taking her hand and clasping it in his.

"Not much," she said with a shrug.

"Well you must be thinking about something," Dean said, "You can tell me you know."

Parvati didn't answer, she just looked out of the window into the distance, begging to be taken away from the present, begging to have her life reversed and hoping, praying that she could take a different road than the one that had gone with the ministry's orders and married Theodore Nott, she wouldn't be in this mess if she hadn't after all.

"Hey," Dean said, squeezing her hand, "Tell me, you can trust me you know."

Parvati sighed, "I'm so scared, Dean," she confessed, "With every second that comes closer I get more and more scared and it's killing me."

"It's okay to be scared," Dean said, his arm snaking its way around Parvati's waist. Parvati had to fight the urge to pull away and clock him over the head. _It's Dean_. She assured herself, _Dean isn't going to hurt you._

"It doesn't feel okay," Parvati said, looking at her hands, "Nothing feels okay anymore."

"That's fine too," Dean said, smiling at her, "We all have times when we feel like nothing is okay."

"Why am I here Dean?" Parvati asked suddenly, looking up at him with tears in her eyes, "Why the actual fuck am I still here? Just to constantly be reminded of how shit this world is?"

"Calm down," Dean said, wiping a tear from her cheek with his thumb, "You're just stressed out, you need to sleep."

"I can't!" she exclaimed, "All I can do is worry and be scared. I don't even know what happiness feels like anymore. I feel like if I'm not scared, I'm not human and if I am then I'm being stupid."

"C'mere," Dean said, putting his arms around her and pulling her into a hug, "Everything's going to be alright."

"You don't know that," Parvati sniffed as she relaxed into his chest, "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"You're right," Dean said, "I don't know that for certain, but I do know that everything will be alright in the end, because it always is."

"Not always," Parvati said bitterly, "Look at me, I got out of that relationship, if you could call it that, with Theodore, and I'm about to have his baby, it's not alright at all."

"Well," Dean said, looking down at her, "I guess that means that you haven't reached the end yet."

Parvati's anxious face relaxed noticeably, "You're an amazing person," Parvati said, "I have no idea what, or where I would be without you."

"Well," Dean said, "I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't you who brought some meaning back into my life."

Parvati blushed, "stop it."

"It's true though," Dean said, "Without you I was just living day to day with no purpose whatsoever and then when I saw you again my life had a purpose."

"I'm sorry I broke up with you," Parvati blurted out, "It's just that we were in the middle of a war and I didn't think that either of us would survive and that's why I broke it off, I didn't want to be more heartbroken than I already would be if you had died."

"It's okay," Dean said softly, finding her hand and lacing his fingers through hers, "You should sleep, its late."

"I can't though," she muttered with a yawn, "I've been trying but it just doesn't come. Not an ounce of it."

"Just try," Dean said, "I'll be here the whole time."

"You won't leave?"

"Never,"

"Promise?"

"I promise,"

Parvati paused as she lay her head against his stomach, "Will you sing for me?"

Dean looked hesitant, "I can't sing."

"Sure you can," Parvati mumbled, "Sing me something from those things you watch with your sisters… musicals?"

Dean grinned, "Yeah, musicals, I still can't sing though."

"Don't be ridiculous, just choose something and sing it."

Dean sighed, giving in almost immediately. He cast his mind around for a song to sing, he found none. Instead, he stumbled upon the tune of an old muggle lullaby that his mother had sung to him when he was a child, and so he sang.

_Rock-a-bye baby on the treetops  
When the wind blows, your cradle will rock,  
When the bough breaks,  
Your cradle will fall,  
and down will come baby, cradle and all…_

"That's incredibly morbid," Parvati mumbled, "You just sung about a baby falling out of a tree…"

Dean thought for a second, "Hush," he said, realising that, indeed, it was literally about a baby falling out of a tree, "What do you want me to sing then?"

"Dunno," Parvati said sleepily, "take your time."

Dean thought and thought but couldn't find anything to sing for her, he only knew rock songs, preferring not to listen to the slower songs as they made him fall asleep. Then it hit him, the perfect song from his sisters' favourite musical.

_Perhaps I had a wicked childhood  
perhaps I had a miserable youth  
but somewhere in my wicked, miserable past,  
there must've been a moment of truth._

_For here you are, standing there, loving me  
Whether or not you should  
So somewhere in my youth, or childhood,  
I must've done something good._

Dean knew there was a reason he didn't listen to slow songs as he felt his eyelids drooping at his own singing as Parvati's breathing became deep and rhythmic against his chest. Dean had told himself he wouldn't take his eye off of Parvati until she had the baby, and he hadn't for two whole weeks now, but Dean was only human and two whole weeks of performing stimulation spells on himself had taken its toll and he fell into a deep slumber shortly after Parvati. He was only human after all

* * *

Dean woke to a small whimper near his right ear, it was so quiet that it almost didn't register but Dean knew that there was only one person in the apartment who could make that noise, and that noise was often made when she was in pain.

Dean's eyes flew open and he sat up abruptly, feeling around blindly in the darkness for Parvati's form. He couldn't find it. His heart starting to pound he put his hand in his pyjama pocket and was relieved to feel his wand in there.

"_Lumos_," He whispered and the end of the wand lit up. Holding it high above his head, he let the light flow over most of the room until he spotted her, curled up on his couch, her head in his pillow, tensed and clearly in pain.

"Parvati," Dean said, his voice panicking as he flicked his wand at the light switch and light flooded the room, making both of them need to shield their eyes from the sudden brightness, "Are you okay?"

Parvati lifted her head out of the pillow briefly and one look at her face told Dean that, no, she was not okay, "Shit, what happened? A dream again?"

Parvati shook her head but before she could specify anything she had dived back into the pillow to stifle another low moan.

That's when Dean realised that the spot he was kneeling in on the carpet was soaking wet. Parvati's water had broken, and this baby was coming now.

"Shit," Dean exclaimed, wondering if he could get Parvati to St Mungo's within the given amount of time before it would hurt the baby to apparate, "Um, okay, Parvati how long have you been having contractions for,"

"About four hours," Parvati managed. Dean swore.

"Why the hell didn't you wake me up?"

"I didn't want to worry you," Parvati said, gritting her teeth and sitting up. Dean was impressed at how well she was handling the situation, It couldn't be easy for her.

"Screw that," Dean said, jumping to his feet and throwing some things into a bag, "We're going to St Mungo's."

"I'm fine, really," Parvati said. Dean shook his head at her.

"Parvati, you've honestly got to stop making that excuse; you're having a baby, and the way my sister described it, it hurts like freaking hell. So quit telling me you're fine."

Parvati managed to roll her eyes as she took Dean's hand and the two of them left the apartment for the Apparition safe point in the alleyway next to the block.

"Do you want me to call Padma or Lavender?" Dean asked quickly as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"No, it's fine," Parvati insisted, "I've got you."

Dean smiled at her and squeezed her hand as they walked down to the entrance of the alleyway. Dean felt Parvati's hand tighten around his and knew that another contraction had hit her. His heart started to beat harder and faster as he realised that if they didn't get to St Mungo's soon, Parvati would be in a full blown labour. Parvati shut her eyes as they walked down the alleyway and Dean knew that now she was probably more prone to remembering what happened than ever before. He drew her closer to him as they reached the safe point, he fixated the waiting room of St Mungo's in his mind and turned on the spot and felt himself pulled into nothingness.

* * *

"What do you mean I can't go in with her?" Dean protested in outrage.

"I'm sorry, sir," the healer said, "We are only permitted to allow immediate family into the delivery ward."

"She hasn't got any immediate family here!" Dean roared, spraying spit in the healers face, "She's only got me!"

"And what relation do you have to Miss Patil?" The healer asked coolly.

"I'm her friend," Dean said indignantly. The healer pursed her lips.

"I'm sorry, sir, but the only time we are permitted to admit a member that is not immediate family into the delivery room is in the event that the couple isn't married. You do not qualify for any of those so I suggest that you sit tight and wait for news."

With that, the healer turned on her heel and walked back into the delivery ward. Dean swore loudly and aimed a kick at a garbage can, sending pieces of paper and empty food packaging flying across the room, earning reproachful looks from other families.

"Oh for fucks sake," Dean muttered, drawing his wand and conjuring his patronus, a large silver dolphin erupted from the end of it and was gone in a flash of silver light, sending a message to Lavender, Seamus, Padma and Terry to tell them to come on over right now. All Dean could do was wait for Padma to come and go in and help Parvati. He hated all of this 'family only' shit at St Mungo's. What if the person didn't have family, were the healers just going to keep them in there on their own. His heart ached for Parvati as he thought of her in there all alone just because the Healers wouldn't let him in, he had been forced to break his promise to stick by her no matter what because of some stupid St Mungo's regulation.

He sat down to refrain from killing someone.

"You alright there mate?" A man who looked about thirty said, leaning over from the seat opposite to talk to Dean.

"Just fed up with St Mungo's policies," Dean snapped. The man rolled his eyes.

"Tell me about it. My best friend just got divorced and her whole family was killed in the war, she's got nobody but me and because I'm just a friend they're not letting me in with her."

"It's fucking stupid," Dean spat bitterly, "I promised I'd help and now she's in there all by herself!"

"Not much we can do though," the man said, "I'm Brad by the way," he held out his hand for Dean to shake.

"Dean," Dean said accepting it.

"So, Dean," Brad said, "What do you think your friend is going to have, a boy or a girl?"

"I dunno," Dean said with a shrug, "I haven't really talked about it with her much."

"Why not?" Brad asked curiously.

"She went through a bit of a tough time before," Dean said vaguely, "She doesn't like to share much."

Brad shrugged, "Fair enough, I guess."

"How long have you been here?" Dean asked, looking at Brad's dishevelled hair and clothing and the large bags underneath his eyes.

Brad looked at his watch, "Honing in on fifteen hours now."

"Shit," Dean exclaimed, "It takes that long to have a baby?"

"Apparently," Brad said, "You'd best get comfortable because you're going to be here for a freaking long time."

Dean didn't doubt him.

* * *

Dean was glad of the fact that Padma had immediately dropped everything to come and be with her sister whereas Lavender and Seamus had told Dean that they had to 'finish something' which, Dean assumed to be a heated make out session, before turning up at St Mungo's to wait with Dean.

That had been eight hours ago. Brad had long since moved inside the maternity ward to see his friend and her baby and Dean was bordering on sleep. Lavender had already curled up on Seamus' lap and was sound asleep, Seamus too was nodding off.

He couldn't help but wish that St Mungo's had let him in to be with her, even though he knew he wasn't going to be allowed. He had known that Parvati had wanted his help and needed it, and the hospital had taken that away from him. Dean vented his feelings by aiming a kick at an empty chair, which toppled backwards immediately.

Twelve long hours he had been here, and all the while there had been no news of any developments. There was a pattering of footsteps from inside Maternity and a woman came out, everyone in the waiting room sat up straighter. Dean prayed that it was Parvati.

"Mister Thomas," the healer said and Dean sighed with relief, it was finally over, "Miss Patil has been asking for you personally. One visitor at a time, I'm afraid." She said as Seamus and Lavender made to get up.

"If you will follow me," she said. Dean jumped to his feet, his heart pounding in his chest in anticipation. Now that it was over, he didn't know what to expect. Would Parvati be awake or asleep? Would she like having a kid or hate it? Would it be a boy or a girl? What would she name it? Everything that Dean hadn't wanted to force her to do was happening right now, whether they liked it or not.

He followed the healer down the row of beds to a bed with a curtain drawn around it. She drew it back to reveal Parvati sitting upright in the bed with a small figure cradled in a bundle of blankets in her arms. Both Padma and Parvati were looking on the baby with looks of joy and adoration on their faces. Dean's heart lifted at the sight of this, at least Parvati wasn't going to suffer post-natal depression… at least he hoped not.

"Parvati?" he said, looking at her with a smile on his face. She and Padma looked up from the baby and Padma immediately vacated her seat, mumbling something about going to get Terry and Isaac and promptly left.

"You alright," he asked, making his way over to her bed and sitting down.

"Never better," Parvati said and Dean could see how genuine her smile was and this was the first time she had felt this good in a while.

"Boy or Girl?" Dean asked, nodding at the baby in Parvati's arms.

"Boy," Parvati said, "Do you want to hold him?"

"I don't – no, he looks happy there with you," Dean said, hesitantly. He wasn't the best when it came to holding fragile things.

"Suit yourself," Parvati said, turning her attention back to her son.

"What are you going to call him?" Dean asked.

"Don't know yet," she said, "I like the name Daniel."

"That's a good name," Dean said, "A nice, strong name."

"You like it?" Parvati asked.

"If you like it, then I love it," Dean said, leaning down and giving her a quick peck on the cheek. Parvati leaned over and said something to the healer, who nodded and walked off.

"She's getting the birth certificate for me to fill in. You sure you don't want to hold him?" she asked.

"Definitely sure," Dean said, he knew if that baby made its way into his arms somehow he would drop it. Parvati laughed slightly, as if she could read his thoughts as the healer returned with a sheet of paper.

"So his name is Daniel Patil?" the healer asked, looking at Parvati for confirmation.

"No," Parvati said, "His name is Daniel Thomas."

Dean looked at her in shock, questioning her decision, Parvati gave Dean a look that said _trust me_ and Dean found that he did completely.

"And," Parvati said as the healer finished filling out the baby's name, "His father is Dean Thomas."

* * *

**AN: Yay finally wrapped up! I'm sorry for dragging this out so long. This is the second last chapter! Wow this has flown by really fast! I hope you all liked the chapter and I'd love it if you could tell me what you thought in a review :)**

**DFTBA  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


	20. On Top of the World

Chapter 20  
On Top Of the World

It was hard for Dean to believe that it had been six years. Six whole years since Daniel was born, six years since Parvati had first kissed him, six years since she had gone through her terrible ordeal with Theodore Nott, who, to both Dean and Parvati's relief, was now dead. He had lasted not much longer than a year in Azkaban and after his death, the Ministry had been able to confirm that his early demise was due to unstable mental health. In normal circumstances, the family of the person might've sued the ministry's arse off for imprisoning an mentally unwell person, but Theodore had no family left, and if he did, they either didn't know about him or particularly care. Dean knew it was wrong for him to be happy that Theodore was dead, but he was. It meant that while Parvati wasn't fully safe, she was definitely safe from him, and so was Daniel.

Dean had lived in constant fear for both Daniel and Parvati's safety when they had come home from the hospital. He knew that he would be capable of protecting one of them, but not both and that had scared him to death. Nothing happened though, nothing had since Theodore had gone to Azkaban and Dean, being a man of action, was surprised to find that he liked it just like that.

"Ready?" Parvati said, looking into the doorway of their bedroom as Dean buttoned up his shirt.

"Yeah," he smiled, walking towards her and taking her hand, "How did you manage to get them all into the car, you know that they hate it."

"I don't know," Parvati smiled, "I guess that they want to see Tessa and Leah, it's been ages since the last time."

"Yeah I'm starting to miss Seamus a little as well," Dean admitted as the two of them walked out the door of their house and down towards their black SUV where their three children were waiting patiently to be driven to Seamus and Lavender's house.

Dean and Parvati got into the front and Dean quickly waved his wand so that the car became invisible.

"We ready to go?" Dean asked the car at large and was met with three calls of 'yes' from the back seats, "Alright then," Dean said, pressing a button on the dashboard and the car rose slowly into the sky.

Dean knew that tampering with a muggle car to let it fly was illegal, however it was a lot more convenient than sitting in muggle traffic all day, plus, nobody could see them.

"When are we going to be there?" Daniel asked from his seat in the very back. Dean chuckled.

"Soon, squirt," he said, looking back briefly at the six year old. Even after six years, it felt weird to call Daniel his son. Sure, he had raised him, fed him, comforted him when he cried, hell, Dean's name was even on the birth certificate (Dean was still not sure if that was legal or not) but still he was not Daniel's actual father. Dean was glad to see that he showed more of Parvati's physical appearance than Theodore's, but it didn't stop him from having the same blue eyes that belonged to Theodore. Dean hoped that the warmth that resided in them now would never leave.

"How long now Daddy?" Simon said from his seat next to Daniel. Dean laughed again, resigning himself to an hour of questions from his children.

"Soon, buddy," he said, smiling in the rear view mirror.

He hadn't expected Parvati to want any more children after Daniel and Dean was completely fine with that. He had her and that was all that mattered, but three years ago, just after the eighth anniversary of the war, that had all changed. Dean remembered it like it was yesterday.

* * *

"_Dean," Parvati said as she stood in the doorway. Dean looked up from his book._

"_Hey," he said, smiling, "You got Daniel down alright then?"_

"_Yeah, he went off pretty quickly."_

"_That's good," Dean said, pulling back her side of the covers, inviting her to get in. _

"_Dean?"_

"_Yeah?" Dean said, noticing how she used his name as a question. _

"_I need to talk to you about something," she said._

"_I'm all ears," Dean said jokingly as he patted the empty space beside him. Parvati walked the short distance from the doorway to the bed and got in, Dean immediately pulled her in close to him and she rested her head on his shoulder, "What is it?" he asked curiously._

"_I've just been thinking lately," she said, looking up at him. "that it might be nice for Daniel to have someone to play with. He's getting tired of me, I can tell."_

"_Nobody can get tired of you," Dean said, planting a kiss on Parvati's forehead. Parvati smiled slightly._

"_He is though," she protested half-heartedly, "he told me that I was boring today."_

"_That's probably just him being a temperamental three year old," Dean shrugged._

"_Either way," Parvati said, "It might be nice for him to have someone to play with that's around his age."_

_Dean sat back against his pillows, "Parvati are you suggesting that we move in with Seamus, Lavender and Tessa because I love them all but I couldn't live with them on a daily basis, Lavender drives me up the wall if I'm around her for too long."_

_Parvati chuckled, "She does have that effect on people."_

"_Seriously Parvati, I can't live with them. I will go stir freaking crazy."_

_Parvati rolled her eyes, "I'm not suggesting that at all, stupid," she said._

"_Oh…" Dean said, his voice faltering, "what were you suggesting then?"_

_Parvati rolled her eyes again and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'men', "I was suggesting…" she said, sitting up and snuggling closer to him, "That maybe we could have another child."_

_Dean almost felt off the bed in surprise. Never in a million years had he thought that Parvati would come to him and ask if they could have another child. He had just assumed that with her previous experience, she wouldn't want to re-live it._

"_A-are you sure?" Dean said. _

"_Of course I'm sure," Parvati said, "I wouldn't have asked you if I wasn't." _

"_But I just thought…" Dean trailed off._

"_What?" Parvati asked.  
"I just thought that after how Daniel came to be… that you wouldn't want to have… I mean… to be involved in the process that makes babies."_

_Parvati snorted," What?"_

"_I'm trying to be delicate here, I know how you can blush," Dean said, feeling himself flushing a deep red._

"_Try me," Parvati said, crossing her arms and sending him a challenging smirk._

_Dean felt himself flush again, not wanting to say what he had been trying to imply moments ago._

"_You know…" he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "The act of making a baby."_

_Parvati raised her eyebrows at him and Dean knew that she was deliberately trying to make him uncomfortable._

"_Jesus Christ," Dean said in frustration before ploughing into what he had been trying to say, "I thought after you being raped by Theodore that you wouldn't want to have sex with me."_

_Parvati burst out laughing._

"_Shut up," Dean said, getting up and pouring some water to put out his face, which he was sure was on fire. _

"_That was priceless," Parvati said. Dean glared at her._

"_Seriously though," Dean said, getting back into bed with his glass of water, "Are you sure that you're ready for this."_

_The smile dropped off Parvati's face, "I've thought about it a lot, and I know that I'm ready." She said sombrely._

"_Really?" Dean asked cautiously._

"_Really, really," she said earnestly._

"_but what if you're not?" Dean asked, worrying a bit more than he probably should've and almost knocking his glass of water over. Parvati placed a hand on his shoulder._

"_I am," she whispered. _

"_But-" _

"_Shut up," Parvati said exasperatedly, grabbing his head and silencing him with her lips. They were like fire on his and they moved so quickly and perfectly together, making Dean never want to let her go, he wanted to spend his whole life with her. He broke away from the kiss._

"_Marry me Parvati?" he said breathlessly as he fought to contain his arousal._

"_Yes," she breathed back, and before Dean could do anything, she had pinned him to the bed… _

* * *

"Daddy look!" Simon said, pointing down as they flew over the rooftops of a block of houses, "It's Leah and Tessa!"

"It sure is," Dean smiled, looking down at the two sandy haired girls playing in their front garden, "Shall we land?" he asked and both Daniel and Simon nodded fervently, their daughter, one year old Mira just slept. Dean grinned at the two young boys and angled the car downwards and the ground started to rush up towards them.

Parvati closed her eyes as they descended while Simon and Daniel squealed in delight as they descended. Dean smiled at the looks on the boys faces as they landed successfully in the Finnigan's front garden.

Dean lifted the invisibility charm and the SUV became visible again. He watched as Leah and Tessa realised that they had company. He watched Tessa whisper something to her younger sister and Leah ran inside, yelling for Seamus.

Dean opened the car door and got out, "Hi Tess," he said with a grin.

"Hi Dean," she said shyly, craning her neck for a look at who had accompanied him, "Is Danny here?" she asked, blushing slightly.

Dean smiled at her, "He sure is!" he said, opening the car door and stepping out of the way as Daniel barrelled out of the car and towards Tessa.

"Tess!" he yelled, tackling her to the ground. Tessa fell back, laughing as Daniel pinned her down. Tessa didn't submit for any longer than a few seconds. Laughing, the six year old pushed Daniel off her with ease, pinning him down after a couple of seconds of wrestling.

Dean watched fondly as Parvati got Mira out of the car. Simon stood behind Dean's leg, watching curiously.

"Dean, Parvati!"

Dean looked up to see none other than Seamus and Lavender Finnigan standing, framed in the doorway of their house, Leah standing as Simon was, just behind her father's legs.

"Hi," Dean said brightly, taking Simon's hand and leading him towards the front steps. Parvati followed with Mira, who was still asleep.

"God it's been too long," Seamus said as the two of them embraced with hard slaps on each other's backs,

"You should move closer to us, that way we don't have to travel for an hour to get to you," Dean said, smiling as he kissed Lavender on the cheek.

"No way mate, if anyone's moving, it'll be you. We've got a baby due any day now." Seamus said, gesturing to Lavender's bulging stomach.

"Yeah, I can see," Dean said, "Any idea what you're going to call it."

"Nope," Seamus said, "Not a clue."

Dean rolled his eyes, it was typical of Seamus.

"But then again, when they get to this stage, you can't really negotiate with them," Seamus whispered, but a little too loudly, earning him a hit from Seamus.

"May I say Lavender, you're glowing," Dean said, in an attempt to make up for Seamus' lack of tact.

"Thank you," Lavender said with a smile, "Come on in, we've got firewhiskey and lemonade for the kids."

Parvati smiled and took Simon's hand as Dean was left with the task of getting Daniel and Tessa to come inside. Instead of reverting to dragging them in by the scruffs of their necks like Seamus did when it was his turn to get them to do something that wasn't playing, he simply waved his wand and the two of them were immediately forced apart.

"Dad!" Daniel whined, "That's not fair!"

"Time to come inside," Dean said, "You can play later, I promise."

"Pinky Swear?" Daniel asked, looking reproachful.

"Pinky Swear," Dean confirmed, holding out his little finger to Daniel who walked forward slowly and wrapped his smaller finger around Dean's larger one.

"Okay," Daniel said, a smile appearing on his face, content with the promise that playing was allowed later, "Come on Tess, let's go hide from Leah and Simon and when they walk past we'll jump out and scare them."

Tessa nodded eagerly and followed Daniel inside. Dean watched as they ran down the corridor and into the dining room to hide from their younger siblings.

Dean walked down the hallway and into the dining room where Parvati was strapping a grumpy looking Mira into the high chair that Seamus and Lavender had set up for her. Three years ago he had married this beautiful woman and he hadn't regretted it a single day. She had been through so much, climbed a thousand mountains in her twenty-nine years of life, defied all of the signs that pointed to depression and suicide. She was as beautiful as a flower on a crisp spring morning, even without the makeup that she used to cover the scars that had been left from those terrible few months six years ago.

Every time he saw her he just wanted to sing with joy because he was hers, and she was his and they could always count on each other.

* * *

**AN: Well that's it! I really hope you enjoyed it and thanks for sticking with this story, it means a lot to me :)**

**Thanks to Shira Lansys' Long Haul Competition that kept the weekly updates coming,  
to Laux14 and AlariceTey, who's competitions got this back off the ground  
and to Forever Siriusly Sirius, who encouraged me to keep going even when I felt like giving up, you're fabulous. **

**I'd really like it if you could leave your thoughts :)**

**DFTBA,  
Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


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